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A 

SOUTHERN SPEAKER 

CONTAINING SELECTIONS FROM THE ORA- 
TIONS, ADDRESSES AND WRITINGS 
OF THE BEST-KNOWN SOUTHERN 
ORATORS, SOUTHERN STATES- 
MEN AND SOUTHERN 
AUTHORS 

TOGETHER WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE RAREST GEMS OF 
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the pieces are to be found in any other book. That Miss 
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summary bears evidence. The volume contains 

Pieces for Lincoln's Birthday 

Pieces for Flag Day 

Pieces for "Washington's Birthday 

Pieces for Easter 

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Concert Recitations 

Selections for Musical Accompaniment 

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The observance of our poets' birthdays has become such 
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PEEFACE. 



Of the many Speakers that have been published during the 
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This book has been compiled for two purposes : 

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Thorough, concise, methodical, replete with common 

sense, complete these words describe fitly this new 

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of his style, in his forceful, incisive, penetrating mastery 
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The title of the book is 

How to Attract and Hold an Audience. 

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CONTENTS. 



Page 

Education in the South, George T. Winston, 1 

The South before the War, . .Henry W. Grady, 3 

The Old South and the New, " " " 6 

Under the Southern Flag, John W. Daniel, 7 

ATypicalHero " " " 9 

Industrial Slavery, B. R. Tillman 10 

" Lesr, we Forget," David Starr Jordan, 12 

Energy, Alexander H. Stephens,.. 14 

The Iron Will of Andrew Jackson, 15 

Men and Memories of the South, T. J. Powell, 16 

The Southern Negro, Henry W. Grady, 18 

The Blue and the Gray, Henry Cabot Lodge, 19 

From Death to Life, Henry W. Grady, 20 

The New Union, Henry Watterson, 22 

A Plea for the Southern Negro C.C.Smith, 23 

Individualism vs. Centralization, Hon. W. G. Wooten, 24 

A Court Scene in the South Adapted, 26 

The Negro Vote in the South, Henry W. Grady, 28 

The Future of the Southern Negro, Booker T. Washington, . . 30 

Fraternalism vs. Sectionalism, Hon. S. W. T. Lanham,. 31 

A United Country, Senator George F. Hoar, 32 

National Unity, Wm. L. Prather 33 

Expand at Home and not in the Philippines,. .D. A. De Armond, 35 

The Independent Voter, Leo N. Levi, 36 

Our Policy toward Porto Rico, S. W. T. Lanham, 38 

Education and Character, Wm. L. Prather 39 

Reunited, William McKinley, 41 

A Plea for Cuba John M. Thurston, 43 

Little Giffen, of Tennessee 4*> 

Development of Southern Resources Wm. H. Garland, 47 

The same, continued, " " " 48 

Influence of Lofty Thoughts and Noble Senti- 
ments Albert Pike, 60 

Reproductive Immortality of Language, Rev. H. B. Bascom, .... 61 

Franklin's Toast, 62 

The March of Improvement, 62 

The Miser, (Poetry,) Captain G. W. Cutter, . 63 

Individual Influence Rev. Dr. Drake, 66 

Moral Independence, 66 

The First Gun of Freedom, Everett, 67 

A Patriotic Hymn, Knickerbocker Mag.,. .. . 69 

Individual Character of Nations, J. C. Andrews, 61 

A New Continent, Anon., 62 

The Coral Grove, (Poetry,) Percival, 63 

Life, Heber, 64 

Beyond the River, (Poetry,) New Orleans Creole, ... 65 

A Valedictory Address, Putnam 66 

Mercy, (Poetry,) Shakspeare, 67 

Collegiate Education, C. Roselius, 67 

The Lost Ship, (Poetry,) Miss Mary Ann Lee, ... 69 

Tell me, ye Winged Winds, (Poetry,) Charles Mackay, 70 

Effects of Ignorance among the Masses, . . C. Roselius, 71 

A Plea for the Union, O.P.Baldwin, 72 

My Lord Tomnoddy, (Humorous Poetry,') .... London Diogenes, 74 

Military Education in Civil Institutions, Prof. C. G. Forshey,... 7o 

No Geographical Party, Rufus Choate, 77 

Shall our Laurels wither ? A. P. Harcourt, 78 

The Song of Steam, American Organ, 79 

Independence Monument, , Kenneth Rayner, 81 

The Same, continued, " " 82 



CONTENTS. 

The Will, (Dialogue,) Anon.. 83 

The American Government, H. W. HiUiard, 86 

The Illustrious Trio of Statesmen, ** " 87 

"William Tell among the Mountains, J. S. Knowlos, 89 

Gratitude to Parents and Teachers D. P. Page, 89 

The World transitory, Rev. J. G.Pike 91 

A Psalm of Life, (Poetry,) Longfellow, . 92 

The Leper, (Poetry,) N.P.Willis 93 

The Standard of the Constitution, Webster, 95 

Daniel Webster, H. W. Hilliard, 97 

The Same, continued, " " 98 

Youthful Love, (Poetry,) Pollok, 99 

The Control of Spirit over Matter, Rev. Dr. Winans, 101 

Sublimity and Beneficence of Creative Power, " " 102 

Marmion and the Douglas, (Poetry,) Scott, 104 

The Death of Marmion, (Poetry,) " 105 

The Union, Webster, 106 

Rienzi's Address to the Romans, (Poetry,)... Mary R. Atitford, 108 

Man and Woman in Contrast, Wirt, 109 

Speech of Sempronius for War, (Poetry,) .... Addison 110 

Speech of Lucius for Peace, (Poetry,) " Ill 

Speech of Cato, (Poetry.) " Ill 

Political Conservatism, Wm. Brainard Spencer, 112 

The Same, continued " " " 114 

The Same, continued, mm m 115 

The Same, continued, " ** " 116 

The Same, concluded, " " « 118 

Unfounded Prejudices ; or, Aversion subdued, 

(Dialogue,) Aikin, 120 

Resistance to Oppression in its Rudiments,. . . Webster, 126 

The Long Ago, (Poetry,) Anon 126 

Eruption of Cosaguina, John L. Stephens, 12? 

The Eagle, (Poetry,) Percival, 129 

Bonaparte, E. A. Nisbet, 130 

Emotions on returning to the United States, 

Legare, 131 

William Tell on Switzerland, (Poetry,) /. -S. Knowles, 132 

In Favor of prosecuting the War, Clay, 138 

The American Flag, (Poetry,) New Orleans Crescent, . 134 

Defence of Jefferson, 1813, Clay, 135 

The Noblest Public Virtue, " 137 

On Recognizing the Independence of Greece, " 137 

The Advice of Polonius to his Son, (Poetry, )Shakspeare, 138 

Perpetual "Vigilance, the Price of Liberty, .Calhoun, 139 

On the Prospect of War " 140 

Against the Force Bill " 141 

Time, (Poetry,) G. D. Prentice 142 

The Purse and the Sword, Calhoun, 143 

Liberty the Meed of Intelligence, " 144 

Music, (Poetry,) Shakspeare, 145 

Lines by Wordsworth, 146 

Genius, (Poetry,) 146 

Portraiture of S. S. Prentiss, J. G. Baldwin, 146 

Mississippi contested Election, <S. S. Prentiss, 148 

Lafayette's Visit to America, ° " 149 

Death of Lafayette, '• •• 150 

The Same, concluded, u «* 151 

Toasting, (Humorous,) •« " 152 

Craniology, (Humorous,) " M 163 

Virginia Patriotism, (Humorous,) J. O. Baldwin, 154 

The Same, concluded, " " 1M 



CONTENTS. vii 

Henry Clay, (Poetry,) Anon., 161 

Henry Clay's Last Speech, (Interview with Kossuth,) 168 

Specimen of Kossuth's Eloquence, Kos&uth, 161 

Specimen No. 2, " 162 

Specimen No. 3, " 162 

Marco Bozzaris, (Poetry,) Halleck, 16b 

The Poet, (Parody on Marco Bozzaris,) Sarah J. Clarke, 166 

On Mr. Clay's Resolution, , ..Webster, 166 

Justice to the Whole Country, . " 167 

All for Good Order, (Dialogue,) D.P.Page, 168 

The Righteous never forsaken, Anon., 177 

The Tomb of "Washington " 179 

Anecdote of Judge Marshall, " 181 

Buena Vista, (Poetry,) Albert Pike, 182 

Darkness, (Poetry,) Byron, 1*4 

Solitude, (Poetry,) " 186 

Disappointed Ambition, (Poetry,) Dr. Johnson, 186 

The Little Philosopher, (Dialogue,) ...Day 186 

Patience essential to Success, Rev. Dr. Talmadge, .... 188 

The Consular System of the TJ. States, John Perkins, Jr., 190 

American Literature, GrimTU, 191 

Predictions of Disunion, • Wm. Pinckney 193 

Value of Knowledge, H. L. Pinckney, 194 

Patriotism, " " 194 

Knowledge without Religion, " " 196 

The Best of Classics, Orimki, 197 

The Family Bible, (Poetry,) Anon., 198 

Absalom, (Poetry,) N. P. Willis 198 

Hamlet and Horatio, (Dialogue,) Shakspeare, 201 

Hard to please, (Dialogue,) Miss Edgeworth, 208 

Old Grimes, (Humorous Poetry,) A. G. Greene, 205 

Major Brown, (Humorous Poetry,) Hood, 206 

The Duel, (Humorous Poetry,) " 208 

The Birthday of Washington, Rufus Choate, 209 

The Indian as he was and is, Sprague, 210 

Reply to Sir Robert Walpole, Pitt 211 

Character of Mr. Pitt, Robertson, 212 

British Refugees, Patrick Henry, 214 

The Fourteenth Congress, R. H. Wilde, 216 

Beauty of Nature in Spring Time 219 

South Carolina, Hayne, 219 

Massachusetts and South Carolina, Webster, 220 

Party Spirit, M.B.Lamar, 222 

The Same, continued, " " 223 

Party Spirit, Clay, 224 

The Mother of Washington, (Poetry,) Mrs. Sigourney, 225 

The Lone Star of Texas, Webb, 227 

Classics Dr. Church, 228 

Industry, Lumpkin, 229 

New Orleans, J. N. Maffit, 229 

On the Adoption of the Constitution, E. Randolph, 231 

The Loss of National Character, Maxey 231 

Influence of National Glory, Clay 232 

War w.th France, John J. Crittenden, 234 

The Union, Andrew P.Butler, 236 

The Union. D. S. Dickinson 236 

A Defence of Daniel Webster, John M. Clayton, 238 

The Exploits of General Taylor, Jefferson Davis, 239 

Apostrophe to Washington, Webster, 241 

The Power of Public Opinion, " ..242 

Popular Excitement in Elections McDuffie, 244 



CONTENTS. 

The Hour of Death,(Poetry,) Mrs. Remans, 244 

The Destiny of the United States, H. W. HiUiard, 246 

The Famine in Ireland, S.S.Prentiss, 247 

New England and the Union,... " " 248 

Republics, Httgh S. Legare, 249 

Eulogium on Franklin, Mirabeau, 260 

The Union of Church and State, " 261 

To the Revolutionary Veterans, Webster, 262 

Intelligence a National Safeguard, Levi Woodbury 264 

The Permanence of American Liberty, McDuMe, 266 

Eulogy on "Washington, J. M.Mason, 256 

Eulogy on Hamilton, Nott, 257 

Intellectual and Commercial Wants, J. C. Calhoun, 257 

Patriotism of the West, Clay 258 

Hector's Attack on the Grecian Walls, Pope's Homer, 269 

Progress of the Age, Everett 261 

Foreign Policy of Washington, Fox, 261 

A Republic the Strongest Government, .Jefferson, 263 

Scene from Pizarro, (Dialogue,) Kotzebue 264 

TheSame. Second Scene, " 266 

American Aristocracy, (Humorous Poetry,) .J. G. Saxe, 268 

Pedantry, (Humorous Dialogue,) Anon., 268 

On Precedents in Government, Lewis Cass, 273 

Tight Times, (Humorous,) Albany Register, 274 

Intervention in the Wars of Europe, . . .Jeremiah Clemens, 276 

The Contest unequal, (Humorous, ) Sydney Smith, 277 

Hazards of our National Prosperity, . . . W . R. Smith, 278 

Improvement, (Humorous,) Dow, Jr., 279 

Despair, (Humorous,) " 280 

Nature, (Humorous,) " 282 

Gold, (Humorous Poetry,) Hood, 283 

Attention the Soul of Genius, Dr. Dewey, 283 

On the Supposed Dangers to the Union Madison, 284 

The Disinterestedness of Washington Robert Treat Paine,.. . . 286 

Vindication of South Carolina, McDuffe, 287 

Intemperance, Edgar A. Poe 288 

No Excellence without Labor Wirt, 289 

Belshazzar's Vision, (Poetry,) Byron, 290 

Address to the Ocean, (Poetry,) " 291 

The Sun-burnt Man, (Humorous,) Stahl, 292 

Nothing in It, (Humorous Dialogue,) Charles Mathews, 293 

The Chameleon, (Poetry,) Merrick, 296 

Knickerbocker's New England Farmer, (Hu- 
morous,) W. Irving, 297 

The Suspension of Diplomatic Relations with 

Austria M. T.Hunter, 299 

The Missionary Enterprise, 301 

The Missionary Spirit, 302 

Against Foreign Influence, Millard Fillmore 303 

Against Sectional Agitation, Franklin Pierce, 304 

Eloquen'ce and Logic, William C. Preston, .... 305 

For Independence, Richard Henry Lee, .... 306 

The Raven, (Poetry,) Edgar A. Poe, 308 

State Interposition, J. C. Calhoun, 311 

Address to the Texian Army, M. B. Lamar, 313 

Enthusiasm, , William Pinckney 314 

Be faithful to your Country, Everett, 315 

Washington's Sword and Franklin's Staff, ..J. Q. Adams, 316 

The Sword of General Jackson, Cass 317 

Union linked with Liberty Andrew Jackson, 3M» 

Scene from Catiline, (Dialogue,) Croly •• 320 



CONTENTS. 

We are Seven, (Poetry,) Wor ds worth,* 328 

Constitution of the United States, Alexander Hamilton,,.. 82*) 

Extent of Country no Bar to Union, . ••Edmund Randolph, .... 326 

Sublime Prospects, (Poetry,) Akenside, 327 

France and the United States Washington, 328 

The Hermit, (Poetry,) Goldsmith, 329 

Man alone makes War on his own Species,.. Scott, 330 

Messiah, a Sacred Eclogue, (Poetry,) Pope, 331 

The Soldier's Tear, (Poetry,) T.H.Bailey, 332 

The Veteran, (Poetry,) " " 333 

Free Discussion, Webster, 333 

American Institutions, . . " 334 

On Government Extro , Crittenden 335 

The Tyrant Gesler auu w liiiam Tell, (Dia- 
logue,) Knowles 336 

The Murderer's Secret, Webster, 338 

TheSame. Part Second, " 339 

War with France, Calhoun, 340 

The Preservation of the Union, Cass, 341 

The True Nature of our Government, . .D. Ullmann, 342 

The Sentinels of Liberty, Webster, 344 

Political Corruption, McDuffie 345 

Instability of Human Governments, Rutleage, 346 

Religious Education, E.A.Nisbet 347 

Tribute to Chatham, Wirt, 348 

Napoleon fallen, Phillips,... 349 

Napoleon at Rest, (Poetry,) Pierpont 350 

Consequences of our Independence, Maxcy, 351 

Gentleman and Irish Servant, (Dialogue,) . .Anon., 352 

Frenchman and his English Tutor, (Dia- 
logue,) « 353 

A Plea for the Ancient Languages, New Orleans Creole, . . . 355 

Defalcation and Retrenchment, <S. S. Prentiss, 356 

The South during the War of 1812, Hayne, 358 

An Excuse, (Humorous,) E.W.C. Normal School, 359 

Eulogy on Candle Light, CHumorous,) Charles Lamb, 360 

The Patriot's Ambition, Clay, 362 

The Consequences of Disunion " 363 

Incidents of Travel, (Humorous,) Major Jones, 364 

Romeo's Description of an Apothecary, (Poe- 
try,) Shakspeare, 366 

Account of a Bachelor, (A Parody on the 

preceding,) Anon •*. 366 

The Union, Clay, 367 

Taxation for War, Calhoun, 368 

State Rights, " 368 

Eulogy upon John C. Calhoun Webster 369 

To the American Flag, (Poetry,) J. R. Drake, 371 

Old Ironsides, (Poetry,) O. W. Holmes, 372 

Demosthenes on the Crown, (Exordium,) 373 

Public Spirit of the Athenians, Demosthenes on the Crown, 374 

Demosthenes not vanquished by Philip,... " " «' 375 

Catiline denounced, Cicero, 376 

Catiline expelled, " ...... 878 

Verres denounced " 378 

Soliloquy of Hamlet's Uncle, Shakspeare w 380 

Cheerfulness, (Poetry,) « 381 

The Essence Boy, (Humorous,) Anon., 881 

Scene from Snakspeare, (Humorous Dia- 
logue,) 888 

Necessity of Education in a Republic, . O. N. Ogden, 888 



I CONTENTS. 

The Same, concluded........ O.N. Ogden, •••• 987 

Ode to the South, Louise Page 388 

The Beer Trial, (Humorous,) Temperance Dialogue*,. 389 

The Spirit of Human Liberty, Webster, 391 

My Aunt, (Humorous Poetry,) O. W. Holme*, 391 

Our Country's Origin, Webster, 393 

The Progress of Liberty, " 394 

The Character of Washington, " 395 

The Responsibility of Americans, " • 396 

The Deep, (Poetry,) Brainard, 397 

Patriotic Triumph, Maxcy, 398 

The Infant Orator, (Poetry,) Anon., 398 

Parody on the Foregoing, (Humorous,) Anon., 399 

The Intemperate Husband, Sprague, 400 

The Drunkard's Daughter, (Poetry,) G. W. Bungay 401 

Baneful Effects of Party Spirit, Rev. Dr. Fisk, 402 

The Destiny of America, Story, 403 

The Responsibilities of America, " 404 

Adams and Jefferson, Everett, 405 

The Same, concluded, " 406 

A Mother's Gift — the Bible, (Poetry,) W. Ferguson, 407 

The Destiny of America, G. S. Hillard, 408 

The Development of our Country, Dr. Henry 409 

The Poet in the Clouds, (Poetry,) Coleridae, 410 

Washington a Man of Genius, Whipple, 410 

The Death of Washington R. T. Paine, 411 

The Light of Science, Ezra D. Barker, 412 

The Good Time coining, J. B. Gough, 413 

The Warfare of Truth, C. W. Upham, 414 

The Party Man, Anon., 414 

The Philosopher's Scales, (Poetry,) Jane Taylor, 415 

Observance of the Sabbath, Dr. Spring, 417 

Cardinal Wolsey's Address to Cromwell, 

(Poetry,) Shakspeare 41? 

Soliloquy of Henry IV., (Poetry,) « 420 

Sabbath Morning, New York Paper, 420 

A Specimen of Pulpit Eloquence, . ..... Bridaine, 422 

Charles XII. of Sweden, (Poetry,) Dr. Johnson, 423 

The Warnings of History, Anon., 424 

America the Land of Promise, Everett, 426 

Love of Country, Charles Gayarre, 425 

The South, Jefferson Davie 427 

Similitudes, (Poetry,) James 428 

Character of Blannerhassett, Wirt, 429 

Agriculture, D. S. Dickinson, 431 

An Appeal for Union J. M. Berrien, 432 

Loyalty to the Constitution, S. A. Douglas, 433 

The Village Schoolmaster, (Poetry,) Goldsmith, 434 

Prospect of planting the Arts and Learning 

in America, (Poetry,) Berkeley, 436 

Address to his Soldiers Francis Marion, 436 

Song of Marion's Men, (Poetry,) Bryant, 437 

The Fate of the Indians, Story, 438 

The Example of our Forefathers, Sparks, 439 

The Study of Oratory in Greece and Rome,.. Wirt, 439 

False Courage, Channing, 440 

True Courage, " 441 

Necessity of a State Law against Dueling, . . . Anon., 442 

On altering the Virginia Constitution, . John Randolph, 443 



Lodgings for Single Gentlemen, (Humorous 
Poetry,) Coltnan, 



CONTKNT8. 

The Bioh Man and the Poor Man, (Poetry, )Khemmt*er, 44* 

Paddy's Metamorphosis, (HumorousPoetry,)3foore, 446 

Othello's Apology, (Poetry,) Shakspeare, 447 

The Toilet, (Humorous Poetry,) Pope 449 

Competence, (Poetry,) Swift, • 449 

Lord Ullin'e Daughter, (Poetry,) Campbell,.,.. 460 

Retrospect, (Poetry,) Cotcper, 452 

Poetry of the Bible, Dr. Spring, 453 

The Same, concluded, " " 454 

Song of Moses after the Passage of the Red 

Sea, 15th Chap, of Exodus,. . 455 

The Closing Year, (Poetry,) G. D. Prentice, 457 

The Last Man, (Poetry,) Campbell, 459 

Columbia, remember thy Heroes, (Poetry,). .James G. Clark, 461 

Washington in Retirement, Sparks, 462 

The Grave of Washington, (Poetry,) Albert Pike, 463 

Daniel Webster, (Poetry,) O. W. Holmes, 464 

Thought without Utterance, (Poetry,) Tupper, 465 

The Power of Eloquence, (Poetry,) " 465 

Trifles, (Poetry,) " 466 

The Good Man, (Poetry,). « 467 

What the Public School House says, Chapin, 468 

The Three Black Crows, (Poetry,) Byrom, 469 

Turn the Carpet, (Poetry,) Hannah More, 470 

The Natural World inferior to the Moral 

World, Grimke, 471 

Slander, (Poetry,) Mrs. Osgood, 478 

8elf-made Men, 474 

The Inchcape Rock, Southey, 475 

Moral Courage, • 477 

The Dear-bought Victory, Anon., 477 

Time « 479 

What is Time, (Poetry,) Marsden, 479 

The Prayerless One, (Poetry,) Anon., 480 

Wealth, E. A. Nisbet, 482 

Military Glory, " " 483 

Memory, (Poetry,) W. M. Praed, 484 

Briers and Bemes, (Poetry,) Brown, 485 

The Fall of Jerusalem, Croly, 487 

May, (Poetry,) 488 

The Majesty of Intellect, Rev. G. S. Weaver, .... 490 

Character the Soul's Habiliment, " " « .... 490 

The Sleeper on Galilee, (Poetry,) Miss Harriet J. Meek, . . 491 

The Winged Worshippers, (Poetry,) C. Sprague, 492 

The Four Master Spirits of the Human Race^lnon., 493 

The Better Land, (Poetry,) Mrs. Hemans, 494 

The Wilkinson Trial, & S. Prentiss, 49£ 

The Dying Alchemist, (Poetry,) Willis, 496 

Loss of the Steamship President, Rev. J. N. Maffit, 499 

The Same, concluded,. * * eT 500 

A Summer Sunset, (Poetry/) Rev. A. E. Goodvoyn,... 501 

The Pitiable Condition of Ignorance, W. W. Hageman, 502 

Death and the Drunkard, (Poetry,) Anon., 503 

Various Bxtraeta. 606-610 



ROSS'S 
SOUTHERN SPEAKER. 



Education in the South. -George T. Winston. 

Great is the commonwealth whose foundations are liberty and 
learning, where every child is blessed with instruction and every 
man is clothed with citizenship ; where popular sovereignty rests 
securely on the firm basis of popular education. A common- 
wealth thus planted in the bleak coast of Massachusetts grew 
rich and strong in educated labor and labor-saving machinery. 

To the southward another colony was planted. Its basis was 
not universal education. Its leaders were heroes and giants in 
intellect and character. They planted a commonwealth un- 
equalled in modern times for the patriotism, learning and virtue 
of its public men ; for the beauty, purity and grace of its 
women ; for the matchless eloquence of its orators ; for the for- 
titude and gallantry of its soldiers, and for unconquerable de- 
votion to personal liberty and constitutional government. It 
was an agricultural colony, of strong and simple life, without 
cities, without factories, with little commerce. Its character 
was patriarchal and its power proceeded not from the mass of 
the people, but from their mighty leaders. It did not compre- 
hend the power of universal education. Between this colony 
and the one north began a struggle for the possession of the 
continent. That struggle, though colored by sectional preju- 
dice, and apparently political, was, in its essence, industrial. It 
was a struggle of the free, educated labor of the North against 
the uneducated slave labor of the South. But the struggle was 
unequal ; the educated free labor of New England, mounted 
upon the steam-engine, travelled faster and wrought greater la- 
bors than the Southern planter carrying upon his back the 



2 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

negro slave. The struggle closed at Appomattox, where the 
South cast off the burden of slavery and began her future de- 
velopment on the basis of universal manhood and educated 
labor. 

" The old order changeth, yielding place to the new, 
And God fulfilled himself in many ways 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 

The age in which we live makes universal education a national 
necessity. Never was life more complex and exacting ; never 
was human achievement more varied and wonderful. Man has 
bridled the moon like an ox and harnessed to the plow the 
thunderbolts of Jove. The solitary student in his study plans 
campaigns, captures cities and overthrows empires. The eye 
of the pale professor penetrates wood and photographs the bones 
of the unborn babe. Time and space are annihilated. The 
earth is girded with ribs of steel, and electric wires flash speech 
around the globe swifter than the voices of the morning. Power 
so mighty was never wielded by the gods of Olympus. The 
world is growing smaller. Place your ear upon the wire and 
hear its pulse beating clearer and louder. " Ignorance is no 
longer a vacuum void of knowledge ; it is a plenum of errors, 
bringing unhappiness to the individual and danger to the state." 

But where is there greater need of universal education than 
in the South ? Here an ancient system has been overthrown, 
and new problems of tremendous moment have been added to 
those that confront the rest of the nation. Problems of a mag- 
nitude surpassing those ever presented to any people before now 
confront the people of the South. The South will prove equal 
to their solution. When we consider how manfully she has 
struggled, and how nobly she has advanced, though freighted 
down with the burden of slavery and popular ignorance, can 
we doubt that another century will see her strengthened by uni- 
versal education, rich in her own resources, strong in diversified 
and intelligent agriculture, still expanding in commerce and 
manufactures, crowded with schoolhouses and colleges and uni- 
versities ? Can we doubt that she will again lead the nation in 
peace and in war? Can we doubt that Washington, and Jef- 
ferson, and Madison, and Monroe, and Jackson will live again in 
unborn statesmen and heroes, who will wisely shape the larger 
destinies of a larger nation i 



THE SOUTH BEFORE TI T E WAR. 



The South before the War.— henry w. Obadt. 

Perhaps no period of human history has been more mis- 
judged and less understood than the slave-holding era in the 
South. Slavery as an institution cannot be defended ; but its 
administration was so nearly perfect among our forefathers as 
to challenge and hold our loving respect. It is doubtful if the 
world has seen a peasantry so happy and so well-to-do as the 
negro slaves in America. The world was amazed at the fidelity 
with which these slaves guarded, from 1861 to 1865, the 
homes and families of the masters who were fighting with the 
army that barred their way to freedom. If " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin " had portrayed the rule of slavery rather than the rarest 
exception, not all the armies that went to the field could have 
stayed the flood of rapine and arson and pillage that would have 
started with the first gun of the Civil War. Instead of that, 
witness the miracle of the slave in loyalty to his master, closing 
the fetters upon his own limbs — maintaining and defending the 
families of those who fought against his freedom — and at night 
on the far-off battlefield searching among the carnage for his 
young master, that he might lift the dying head to his breast 
and bend to catch the last words to the old folks at home, so 
wrestling the meantime in agony and love, that he would lay 
down his life in his master's stead. 

History has no parallel to the faith kept by the negro in the 
South during the war. Often five hundred negroes to a single 
white man ; and yet through these dusky throngs the women 
and children walked in safety, and the unprotected homes 
rested in peace. Un marshalled, the black battalions moved 
patiently to the fields in the morning to feed the armies their 
idleness would have starved, and at night gathered at the " big 
house to hear the news from marster," though conscious that 
his victory made their chains enduring. Everywhere humble 
and kindly. The bodyguard of the helpless. The rough com- 
panion of the little ones. The observant friend. The silent 
sentry in his lowly cabin. The shrewd counsellor. And when 
the dead came home, a mourner at the open grave. A thou- 
sand torches w* ~\d have disbanded every Southern army, but 
not one was lignted. When the master, going to a war in 
which slavery was involved, said to his slaves, " I leave my home 
and loved ones in your charge," the tenderness between man 
and master stood disclosed. 



4 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

The Northern man, dealing with casual servants, querulous, 
sensitive, and lodged for a day in a sphere they resent, can 
hardly comprehend the friendliness and sympathy that existed 
between the master and the slave. He cannot understand how 
the negro stood in slavery days, open-hearted aud sympathetic, 
full of gossip and comradeship, the companion of the hunt, frolic, 
furrow and home, contented in the kindly dependence that had 
been a habit of his blood, and never lifting his eyes beyond the 
narrow horizon that shut him in with his neighbors and friends. 
But this relation did exist in the days of slavery. It was the 
rule of that regime. It has survived war and strife, and polit- 
ical campaigns in which the drum -beat inspired and Federal 
bayonets fortified. It will never die until the last slaveholder 
and slave have been gathered to rest. It is the glory of our 
past in the South. It is the answer to abuse and slander. It 
is the hope of our future. 



The New South.— henry w. Grady. 

The picture of your returning armies of the North has been 
drawn for you by a master hand. You have been told how 
in the pomp and circumstance of war they came back to 
you, marching with proud and victorious tread, reading their 
glory in a nation's eyes. Will you bear with me while I tell 
you of another army that sought its home at the close of the 
late war — an army that marched home in defeat and not in vic- 
tory, in pathos and not in splendor, but in glory that equalled 
yours, and to hearts as loving as ever welcomed heroes home ? 

Let me picture to you the footsore Confederate soldier as, 
buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parol which was to 
bear testimony to his children of his fidelity and his faith, he 
turned his face southward from Appomattox in April, 1865. 
Think of him as ragged, half starved, heavy hearted, enfeebled 
by want and wounds, having fought to exhaustion, he surrenders 
his gun, wrings the hand of his comrades in silence, and lifting 
his tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to the graves 
that dot old Virginia's hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow, 
and begins his slow and painful journey. 

What does he find — let me ask you — what does he find, 
when, having followed the battle-stained cross against over- 
whelming odds, dreading death not half so much as surrender, 



THE NEW SOUTH. 5 

he reaches the home he left so prosperous and beautiful. He 
finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves free, his 
stock killed, his barns empty, his trade destroyed, his money 
worthless ; his social system, feudal in its magnificence, swept 
away ; his people without law or legal status, his comrades slain, 
and the burdens of others heavy on his shoulders. Crushed by 
defeat, his very traditions are gone. Without money, credit, em- 
ployment, material or training ; and, besides all this, confronted 
with the gravest problem that ever met human intelligence — the 
establishment of a status for the vast body of his liberated 
slaves. 

What does he do, this hero in gray with a heart of gold ? 
Does he sit down in sulleness and despair? Not for a day. 
Surely God, who had stripped him of his prosperity, inspired 
him in his adversity. As ruin was never before so overwhelm-* 
ing, never was restoration swifter. The soldiers stepped from 
the trenches into the furrow ; horses that had charged Federal 
guns marched before the plough, and fields that ran red with 
human blood in April were green with the harvest in June. 

But what is the sum of our work ? We have found out thax 
the free negro counts more than he did as a slave. We have 
planted the schoolhouse on the hilltop, and made it free to white 
and black. We have sowed towns and cities in the place of 
theories, and put business above politics. 

The New South is enamored of her new work. Her soul is 
stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of a grander 
day is falling fair on her face. She is thrilling witn a con- 
sciousness of growing power and prosperity. As she stands 
upright, full statured and equal, among the peoples of the earth, 
breathing the keen air and looking out upon the expanding 
horizon, she understands that her emancipation came because, 
through the inscrutable wisdom of God, her honest purpose was 
crossed and her brave armies were beaten. 

Now what answer has New England to this message ? Will 
she withhold, save in strained courtesy, the hand which straight 
from his soldier's heart Grant offered to Lee at Appomattox ? 
If she does, the South, never abject in asking for comradeship, 
must accept with dignity its refusal ; but if she does not refuse 
to accept in frankness and sincerity this message of good-will 
and friendship, then will the prophecy of Webster, delivered in 
this very society forty years ago, be verified in its fullest extent, 
when he said : " Standing hand to hand and clasping hands, we 
should remain united as we have been for sixty years : citizens of 



6 BOSS'S SPEAKER, 

the same country, members of the same government, united, all 
united now, and united forever." 



Tfie Old South and the New.—Hxinn w. Grady. 

It was Ben Hill, the music of whose voice is now attuned to 
the symphonies of the skies, who said, "There was a South of 
secession and slavery; that South is dead; there is a South 
of union and freedom ; that South, thank God, is living, grow- 
ing every hour." 

In answering the toast to the New South to-night, I accept 
that name in no disparagement to the Old South. Dear to me, 
sir, is the home of my childhood and the traditions of my 
people, and not for the glories of New England's history, from 
Plymouth Rock, all the way, would I surrender the least of 
these. Never shall I do, or say, aught to dim the lustre of the 
glory of my ancestors, won in peace and in war. Where is the 
young man in the South who has spoken one word in disparage- 
ment of our past, or has worn lightly the sacred traditions of 
his fathers \ The world has not equalled the unquestioning 
reverence and the undying loyalty of the young men of the 
South, to the memory of our fathers. I have stood with them 
shoulder to shoulder, as they met new conditions without sur- 
rendering old faiths, and I have been content to feel the grasp 
of their hands and the throb of their hearts, as they marched 
unfearing into new and untried ways. 

If I should attempt to prostitute the generous enthusiasm of 
these, my comrades, to my own ambition, I should be unworthy. 
If any man, enwrapping himself in the sacred memories of the 
Old South, should prostitute them to the hiding of his weakness 
or the strengthening of his failing fortunes, that man would be 
unworthy. If any man, for his own advantage, should seek to 
divide the Old South from the New, or the New from the Old 
— to separate these that in love have been joined together — to 
estrange the son from his father's grave and turn our children 
from the memories of our dead — to embitter the closing days 
of our veterans with the suspicion of the sons that shall follow 
them, that man's words are unworthy and spoken to the injury 
of his people. 

Some one lias said, in derision, that the old men of the South, 
sitting down amid their ruins, reminded him of "the Spanish 



UNDER THE SOUTHERN FLAG. 7 

hidalgoes sitting in the porches of the Al ham bra and looking 
out to sea for the return of the lost Armada." There is pathos 
but no derision in this picture to me. These men were our 
fathers. Their lives were stainless. Their hands were daintily 
cast, and the civilization they builded in tender and engaging 
grace hath not been equalled. The scenes amid which they 
moved, as princes among men, have vanished forever. A 
grosser and more material day has come, in which their gentle 
hands can garner but scantily, and their guileless hearts fend 
but feebly. Let me sit, therefore, in the dismantled porches of 
their homes, into which dishonor hath never entered — to which 
discourtesy is a stranger, and gaze out to sea, beyond the horizon 
of which their Armada has drifted forever. And though the sea 
shall not render back for them the Argosies which went down in 
their ships, let us build for them, in the land they love so well, 
a stately and enduring temple, its pillars founded in justice, its 
arches springing to the skies, its treasuries filled with substance, 
liberty walking in its corridors and religion filling its aisles with 
incense ; and here let them rest in honorable peace and tranquil- 
ity until God shall call them hence, to " a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens." 



Under the Southern Flag.— John w. Daniel. 

There was no happier or lovelier home than that of Col. Robert 
E. Lee in the spring of 1861, when for the first time its thresh- 
old was darkened with the omens of Civil War. Crowning the 
green slopes of the Virginia hills that overlook the Potomac, 
and embowered in stately trees, stood the venerable mansion of 
Arlington, facing a prospect of varied and imposing beauty. 

So situated was Colonel Lee in the spring of 1861, upon the 
verge of the momentous revolution of which he became so 
mighty a pillar and so glorious a chieftain. How can we esti- 
mate the sacrifice he made to take up arms against the Union ? 
Lee was emphatically a Union man ; and Virginia, to the crisis 
of dissolution, was a Union state. He loved the Union with a 
soldier's ardent loyalty to the government he served, and with 
a patriot's faith and hope in the institutions of his country. In 
January, 1861, Colonel Lee, then with his regiment in Texas, 
wrote to his son : — u As an American citizen, I take great pride 
in my country, her prosperity and institutions; and yet I would 
defend my state were her rights invaded. But I can anticipate 



8 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

no greater calamity to the country than a dissolution of the 
Union. Secession is nothing but revolution. * * * If the 
Union is dissolved, I shall return to my native state and share 
the miseries of my people and, save in defence, will draw my 
sword on none." 

The war-cloud lowered. On April 15th came President Lin-» 
coin's proclamation for 75,000 men. This proclamation deter- 
mined Virginia's course, and an ordinance of secession was 
passed. War had come. 

" Under which flag ? " was the sternly pathetic question that 
Lee mast now answer. On the one hand Virginia, now in the 
fore-front of a scarcely organized revolution, summoned him to 
share her lot in the perilous adventure. The young Confederacy 
is without an army ; there is no navy, no currency. There is 
little but a meagre and widely scattered population, for the 
most part men of the field, the prairie, the forest and the moun- 
tain, ready to stand the hazard of an audacious endeavor. Did 
he fail, his beloved state would be trampled in the mire of the 
ways; his people would be captives, their very slaves their mas- 
ters; and he — if of himself he thought at all — he, mayhap, may 
have seen in the dim perspective the shadow of the dungeon or 
the scaffold. 

On the other hand stands the foremost and most powerful 
Republic of the earth. Its regular army and its myriad volun- 
teers rush to do its bidding. Its capital lies in sight of his 
chamber window, and its guns bear on the portals of his home. 
A messenger comes from its President and from General Scott, 
Commander-in-Chief of its army, to tender him supreme com- 
mand of its forces. No man could have undergone a more try- 
ing ordeal or met it with a higher spirit of heroic self-sacrifice, 
since the Son of Man stood upon the Mount, saw "all the king- 
doms of earth and the glory thereof," and turned away from 
them to the agony of Gethsemane. 

To the statesman, Mr. Francis P. Blair, who brought him the 
tender of supreme command, Lee answered, " Mr. Blair, I look 
upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four miilion slaves 
in the South, I would sacrifice them all to the Union. But how 
can I draw my sword against Virginia?" 

Draw his sword against Virginia? Perish the thought! Over 
all the voices that called he heard the still small voice that ever 
whispers to the soul of the spot that gave it birth ; and over 
every ambitious dream there rose the face of the angel that 
guards the door of home. 



A TYPICAL HERO. 9 

I pause not here to defend the course of General Lee. In the 
supreme moments of national life, as in the lives of individuals, 
the actor must resolve and act within himself alone. The South- 
ern states acted for themselves — the Northern states for them- 
selves — Virginia for herself. And when the lines of battle 
formed, Lee took his place in the line beside his people, his 
kindred, his children, his home. Let his defence rest on this 
fact alone. Nature speaks it. Nothing can strengthen it. Noth- 
ing can weaken it. The historian may compile ; the casuist may- 
dissect ; the statesman may expatiate ; the advocate may plead ; 
the jurist may expound; but, after all, there can be no stronger 
and tenderer tie than that which binds the faithful heart to 
kindred and to home. And on that tie — stretching from the 
cradle to the grave, spanning the heavens, and riveted through 
eternity to the throne of God on high, and underneath in the 
souls of good men and true — on that tie rests, stainless and im- 
mortal, the fame of Robert E. Lee. 



A Typical Hero,— John w. dan«l. 

At the bottom of true heroism is unselfishness. Its crowning 
expression is sacrifice. The world is suspicious of vaunted 
heroes ; but when the true hero has come, how the hearts of 
men leap forth to greet him — how worshipfully we welcome 
God's noblest work — the strong, honest, fearless, upright man ! 

In Robert E. Lee was such a hero vouchsafed to us and to 
mankind, and whether we behold him declining command of the 
Federal army to fight the battles and to share the miseries of 
his own people ; proclaiming on the heights in front of Gettys- 
burg that the fault of the disaster was his own ; leading charges 
in the crisis of combat; walking under the yoke of conquest 
without a murmur of complaint ; or refusing fortunes to go to 
Washington and Lee University to train the youth of his coun- 
try in the path of duty — he is ever the same meek, grand, self- 
sacrificing spirit. As President of Washington College he 
exhibited qualities not less worthy and heroic than those dis- 
played on the broad and open theatre of conflict, when the eyes 
of nations watched his every action. In the calm repose of 
civic and domestic duties and in the trying routine of incessant 
tasks, he lived a life as high as when, day by day, he marshalled 
his thin and wasting lines. In the quiet walks of academic life, 



10 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

far removed from " war or battle's sound," came into view the 
toweling grandeur, the massive splendor and the loving kindness 
of the character of General Lee, and the very sorrows that over- 
hung his life seemed luminous with celestial hues. There he 
revealed in manifold gracious hospitalities, tender charities, and 
patient, worthy counsels how deep and pure and inexhaustible 
were the fountains of his virtues. And loving hearts delight to 
recall, as loving lips will ever delight to tell, the thousand little 
things he did which sent forth lines of light to irradiate the 
gloom of the conquered land and to lift up the hopes and cheer 
the works of his people. 

Come we then to-day in loyal love to sanctify our memories, 
to purify our hopes, to make strong all good intent by com- 
munion with the spirit of him who, being dead, yet speaketh. 
Let us crown his tomb with the oak, the emblem of his strength, 
and with the laurel, the emblem of his glory. And as we seem 
to gaze once more on him we loved and hailed as chief, the 
tranquil face is clothed with heaven's light and the mute lips 
seem eloquent with the message that in life he spoke : 

" There is a true glory and a true honor ; the glory of duty 
done, the honor of the integrity of principle." 



Industrial Slavery.— &. R. Tillman, of South Carolina. 

The money changers are in the temple of our liberties and 
have bought the sentinels on guard. It may be too late. God 
grant it be not so ; but this great Republic can only be saved 
from the miseries of revolution and internecine strife in the near 
future by its citizens casting aside blind allegiance to party and 
marshalling themselves under the banner of Jefferson's Democ- 
racy and Lincoln's Republicanism, determined to restore the Re- 
public to the form in which it was left to us by the fathers, and 
since consecrated by the blood of brothers, shed in Civil War, 
engendered and brought about by just such statesmanship as we 
have here. The encroachments of the Federal judiciary, and 
the supineness and venality — corruption, I may say — of the 
representative branches of the Government are causes of deep 
concern to all thinking and patriotic men. We are fast drifting 
into government by injunction in the interest of monopolies and 
corporations, and the Supreme Court, by one corrupt vote, an- 
nuls an act of Congress looking to the taxation of the rich. 



INDUSTRIAL SLAVERY. 11 

A day of reckoning will come, unless there is no longer a just 
God in heaven ; and when it does come, woe be unto those who 
have been among the oppressors of the people. The present 
struggle is unfortunately too like that which preceded the late 
Civil War, inasmuch as it is sectional. The creditor and the man- 
ufacturing states of the North and East, those which have grown 
inordinately wealthy at the expense of the producing classes of 
the South and West, are urging this policy with the besotted 
blindness of Belshazzar. The old slaveholders of the South were 
not more arrogant or more determined. " The sordid despotism 
of wealth," to use the apt phrase of Justice Brown, is already felt 
throughout the land. The Representatives in Congress from 
those states, without regard to party affiliations, are solidly 
arrayed under the banner of monopoly and the gold standard. 
Greed and self-interest seem alone to actuate them. Self-pres- 
ervation and patriotism should bind the South and West in 
equally strong bonds of union. We cannot afford to longer put 
party above country. 

You have already been told in glowing language by the elo- 
quent Senator from Missouri that the conflict is " irrepressible," 
and it is easy to see from the temper and feeling of the equally 
distinguished Senator from Colorado and other western Sena- 
tors that the struggle for the new emancipation has begun. And 
the new Mason and Dixon's line which is drawn, not by the sur- 
veyor, but by the denial of the natural and inalienable " right to 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness " to a large majority of 
citizens, will sooner or later bring together in the bonds of union 
the toiling and now down-trodden masses of the cities and the 
equally desperate masses of the country ; agrarianism and com- 
munism will join hands. There are millions now on the march, 
and they tramp, tramp, tramp ; tramp the sidewalks hunting 
work and tramp the highways begging bread. Unless relief 
comes they will some day take a notion to tramp to Washing- 
ton, with rifles in their hands, to regain their liberties which 
have been stolen from them or which their representatives have 
sold ; and the hitherto conservative force of the Republic, the 
well-to-do agricultural class, will lift no hand to stay the march, 
but join it. God grant that our country may be spared the enact- 
ment of such scenes as were witnessed in Paris in 1789. But 
the fair flower of liberty planted by Jefferson in the immortal 
Declaration of the 4th of July, 1776, watered by the blood of our 
Revolutionary sires under Washington, cannot be uprooted or 
smothered by the noxious weeds of monopoly and class privilege 



12 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

without bloodshed ; and a cataclysm, which will give us a mili- 
tary despotism, or leave the Republic redeemed, regenerated, and 
disenthralled, is just as sure to come as yonder sun shines in the 
heavens, unless we do our duty here and take the hands of these 
conspirators off the people's throats and give them an opportunity 
to breathe, to work, to live. 



" Lest we Forget."— D avid Starr Jordan. 

Patriotism is the will to serve one's country, to make one's 
country better worth serving. It is a course of action rather 
than a sentiment. The shrilling of the mob is not patriotism. 
It is not patriotism to trample on the Spanish flag, to burn fire- 
crackers, or to twist the Lion's tail. The " glory " of war turns 
our attention from civic affairs. Neglect invites corruption. 
Noble and necessary as was our Civil War, we have not yet recov- 
ered from its degrading influences. The war with Spain has 
united at last the North and South, we say. So, at least, it ap- 
pears. When Fitzhugh Lee is called a Yankee, and all the haughty 
Lees seem proud of the designation, we may be sure that the old 
lines of division exist no longer. But our present solidarity shows 
that the nation was sound already, else a month could not have 
welded it together. 

It is twenty-eight years ago to-day that a rebel soldier, who 
says, 

" I am a Southerner, 

I loved the South and dared for her 

To fight from Lookout to the sea 

With her proud banner over me." 

stood before the ranks of the Grand Army and spoke these 

words : 

" I stand and say that you were right; 
I greet you with uncovered head, 
Remembering many a thunderous fight 
When whistling death between us sped ; 
I clasp the hand that made ray scars, 
I cheer the flag my foemen bore, 
I shout for joy to see the stars 
All on our common shield once more." 

This was more than a quarter of a century ago, and all this 
time the great loyal South has patiently and unflinchingly ac- 



"LEST WE FORGET." 13 

cepted war's terrible results. It is not strange, then, that she 
shows her loyalty to-day. The " Solid South," the bugaboo of 
politicians, the cloak of Northern venality, has passed away for- 
ever. The warm response to American courage, in whatever 
section or party, shows that, with all our surface divisions, we 
of America are one in heart. And this very solidarity should 
make us pause before entering upon a career of militarism. Un- 
forgetting, open-eyed, counting all the cost, let us make our 
decision. The Federal republic, the imperial republic — which 
shall it be ? 

The policing of far-off islands, the maintenance of the ma- 
chinery of imperialism, are petty things beside the duties which 
the higher freedom brings. To turn to these empty and showy 
affairs is to neglect our own business for the gossip of our neigh- 
bors. Such work may be a matter of necessity ; it should not 
be a source of pride. The political greatness of England has 
never lain in her navies nor the force of her arms. It has lain 
in her struggles for individual freedom. Not Marlborough, nor 
Nelson, nor Wellington, is its exponent ; let us say rather Pym 
and Hampden, and Gladstone and Bright. The real problems 
of England have always been at home. The pomp of impe- 
rialism, the display of naval power, the commercial control of 
India and China — all these are as the bread and circuses by 
which the Roman emperors held the mobs from their thrones. 
They keep the people busy, and put off the day of final reckon- 
ing. " Gild the dome of the Invalides " was Napoleon's cyn- 
ical command when he learned that the people of Paris were 
becoming desperate. 

A foe is always at the gates of a nation with a vigorous 
foreign policy. The British nation is hated and feared of 
all nations except our own. Only her eternal vigilance keeps 
the vultures from her coasts. Eternal vigilance of this sort 
will strengthen governments, will build up nations; it will not 
in like degree make men. The day of the nations as nations 
is passing. National ambitions, national hopes, national ag- 
grandizements — all these may become public nuisances. Im- 
perialism, like feudalism, belongs to the past. The men of the 
world as men, not as nations, are drawing closer together. The 
needs of commerce are stronger than the will of nations, and 
the final guarantee of peace and good-will among men will be 
not " the parliament of nations," but the self-control of men. 

Some great changes in our system are inevitable, and belong 
to the course of natural progress. Against them I have nothing 



14 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

to say. Whatever our part in the affairs of the world, we should 
play it manfully. But with all this I believe that the movement 
toward broad dominion would be a step downward. It would 
be to turn from our highest purposes to drift with the current 
of " manifest destiny." It would be not to do the work of 
America, but to follow the ways of the rest of the world. 

"God of our fathers, known of old — 
Lord of our far-flung- battle line — 
Beneath whose awful hand we hold 
Dominion over palm and pine ; 
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
Lest we forget, lest we forget. 

The tumult and the shouting dies, 
The captains and the kings depart — 
Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice, 
An humble and a contrite heart. 
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
Lest we forget, lest we forget. 

Far-called our navies melt away — 
On dune and headland sinks the fire — 
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday 
Is one with Ninevah and Tyre ! 
Judge of the nations, spare us yet, 
Lest we forget, lest we forget." 



HJliergy.— Alexander H. Stephens. 

By energy I mean application, attention, activity, persever- 
ance, and untiring industry in that business or pursuit, whatever 
it may be, which is undertaken. Nothing great or good can 
ever be accomplished without labor and toil. Motion is the law 
of living nature. Inaction is the symbol of death, if it is not 
death itself. The hugest engines, with strength and capacity 
sufficient to drive the mightiest ships across the stormy deep, 
are utterly useless without a moving power. 

Energy is the steam-power, the motive-principle of intellectual 
capacity. A small body driven by a great force will produce a 
result equal to, or even greater than, that of a much larger body 
moved by a considerably less force. So it is with our minds. 
Hence it is that we often see men of comparatively small capac- 



THE IRON WILL OF ANDBEW JACKSON. 15 

ity, by greater energy alone, leave — and justly leave — their 
superiors in natural gifts far behind them in the race for hon- 
ors, distinction, and preferment. 

It is this principle in human nature which imparts that quality 
which we designate by the very expressive term, " force of char- 
acter," which meets, defies, and bears down all opposition. This 
is, perhaps, the most striking characteristic of those great minds 
and intellects which never fail to impress their names, ideas, and 
opinions indelibly upon the history of the times in which they 
live. 

Men of this class are those pioneers of thought who sometimes, 
even " in advance of the age," are known and marked in history 
as originators and discoverers, or those who overturn old orders 
and systems of things and build up new ones. To this class be- 
long Columbus, Watt, Fulton, Franklin, and Washington. It 
was to this same class that General Jackson belonged ; for he 
not only had a very clear conception of his purpose, but a will 
and energy to execute it. And it is in the same class, or among 
the first order of men, that Henry Clay will be assigned a place. 

His aims and objects were high, and worthy of the greatest 
efforts ; they were not to secure the laurels won on the battle- 
field, but those wreaths which adorn the brow of the wise, the 
firm, the sagacious, and far-seeking statesman. In his life and 
character a most striking example is presented of what energy 
and indomitable perseverance can do even when opposed by 
most adverse circumstances. 



The Iron Will of Andrew Jackson. 

Both friends and foes have bestowed on Andrew Jackson the 
characteristic of being a man of iron will. When this is meant 
to imply hardness of heart, nothing could be further from the 
truth, but when it means that his sense of duty was strong, and 
stronger even than his feelings, the term may not have been 
misapplied. 

His iron will was mere firmness or inflexibility in the cause 
he deemed right. It was an indomitable resolution to carry out 
what conscience dictated. Judgment and the fruits of it, opin- 
ion and corresponding conduct, it seemed to him, ought to be 
inseparable. He knew of no compromise or half-way measures 
with what was wrong. 

This high moral tone, though often imputed to him as a fault, 



16 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

was in fact the crowning glory of his character, whether as a 
man, a warrior, or a politician. So far as its having proved in- 
consistent with seeking full advice, and weighing contradictory 
reasons, and adopting measures of conciliation, where justifiable 
and wise, it was generally preceded by the amplest inquiries and 
careful deliberation. But a conclusion having been once formed, 
his mind and heart were flung into its execution with almost 
resistless energy, and then in fortitude to resist opposition, and 
in courage to brave all difficulties, and inflexible perseverance to 
carry out measures deemed right, he may well have been called 
a man of iron, a man of destiny, or the hero of the iron will. 



Men and Memories of the South .-t. j. Powell. 

The most momentous century of time is nearly ended and our 
faces are turned toward the east awaiting the sunrise of a new one. 
Your life's work is nearly done, and the superb citizenship of our 
fair South, which spring from your loins, will take up the prob- 
lems of life and government, ennobled and strengthened by the 
loyalty, courage and devotion of its ancestry. When the last 
leaf is turned and the volume is carefully and tenderly placed 
in position, that portion devoted to our Civil War will hold a 
record to which your children's children will turn and stand in 
amazement before the sublimity of your struggle and the un- 
di mined lustre of your fame. There they will find the seed of 
the Puritan and the seed of the Cavalier, struggling for suprem- 
acy — the conviction of the one battling against the institutions 
of the other. They will follow the two streams of our national 
life meandering from Plymouth Rock and Georgetown into that 
irrepressible, unavoidable clash that merged them into a common 
channel amidst the awful horrors and carnage of war. They will 
find the institutions of the Cavalier, not lost, but remodeled by 
the convictions of the Puritan, and the convictions of the Puri- 
tan not altered but strengthened and broadened by the quickened 
and multiplied stream of American manhood — sublime in its 
amalgamated virtue and power. 

On July 21, 1861, the first real conflict of the war was fought 
on the battlefield of Bull Run. How easily you can recall the 
scene. The morning sun found the Federal forces on the hill at 
Centreville. The flower of the Southern army was at Stone 
House, on the other side of Bull Run. Thousands of gay equi- 



MEN AND MEMORIES OF THE SOUTH. 17 

pages trailed in the rear of the Union army — camp followers who 
were there to witness the end of the war, but when night came 
they were scattered to the winds in a mad and riotous rush back 
to the national capital, while victory crowned the Confederate 
arms. As a boy I have hunted over the historic fields and oft- 
times listened in wondering awe to the recital of that battle by 
those who witnessed it. There it was that Jackson earned the 
name of " Stonewall," a name that gleams in the night of our 
history like a star of the first magnitude o'er a mountain peak. 
All the hot, fierce fire of the noonday sun and all the mildness 
of the midnight moon were mingled in the character of " Stone- 
wall " Jackson. He was a mosaic, combining the convictions of 
the Puritan, predominated by the blood of a Cavalier. How 
proudly we recall him in his marvelous fights — a flashing sword 
— sweeping irresistibly the enemy from his pathway. How 
tenderly we remember him, wrestling in prayer, a very god of 
war. Even now our eyes grow dim at the recollection of that 
dark night near Chancellorsville when he fell at the hands of 
his own men, and " crossed over the river to rest under the 
shade of the trees." 

Another face looks at me from memory as I speak. I re- 
member upon a June day in 1876 climbing a Virginia mountain 
with a fair-haired daughter of a Confederate veteran by my 
side. We stopped to beg a drink of water from a cabin near 
its summit. And there upon a rude mantel was a face framed 
in mountain flowers. For a moment we stood almost breath- 
less, for in that rugged feature lay the volume of the fallen 
Confederacy. Since then I have seen that same face in gilded 
frame upon the frescoed walls of the rich — gazed upon its grand 
outline in marble and bronze in many public places in the South, 
where in heroic size it stands a sad sentinel over the bivouac of 
the Confederacy, but never has it so filled my bosom with rev- 
erence and love as when in that mountain cabin I looked into 
the face of Robert E. Lee. He was the embodiment of all the 
genius, virtue and courage of the Cavalier. A purer man never 
lived. He was the inspiration, the hope and the shield of the 
Confederacy. His military genius grows brighter and brighter 
as the years increase, and will continue so until the history pro- 
claims him the central figure of the year. He is the greatest 
memory of the South. 

To enumerate further would be folly, for the roll of honor 
embraces all who bared their breasts in the struggle or guided 
its fortunes in the council chamber. And now as I asrain bid 



18 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

you welcome, a vision of your old homes comes to me, and the 
rippling words of an old song bubbles to my lips : 

"Turn backward, turn backward, oh, time in your night, 
Make me a boy again just for to-night." 

Fair, beautiful Southland ! You are the idol of our wakeful 
moments, the soul of reverie and the genius of our dreams. 
We, thy children, celebrate thy valor and thy history. Around 
thy mountain peaks lay the dreams of our youth, and lost in 
thy valleys are the voices of our childhood. We touch upon 
the harp of your history, and lo ! the soul is moved with the 
music of thy fame. In thy bosom sleep loved and lost com- 
rades, covered with a wilderness of bloom and perfume. Fair, 
fair Southland! Beautiful in thy suffering; radiant in thy re- 
newed greatness ; may God's richest blessing rest with thee and 

thy children forever. 

+ 

The Southern Negro.— henry w. graby. 

Far to the south lies the fairest and richest domain of this 
earth. But why is it, though the sectional line be now but a 
mist that the breath may dispel, fewer men of the North have 
crossed it over to the South than when it was crimson with the 
best blood of the Republic, or even when the slaveholder stood 
guard every inch of its way ? There can be but one answer. 

I thank God as heartily as you do that human slavery is gone 
forever from the American soil. But the freedman remains. 
With him a problem without precedent or parallel. Note its 
appalling conditions. Two utterly dissimilar races on the same 
soil — with equal civil and political rights — almost equal in num- 
bers, but terribly unequal in intelligence and responsibility — 
each pledged against fusion — one for a century in servitude to 
the other, and freed at last by a desolating war — these are the 
conditions. 

Meanwhile we treat the negro fairly, measuring to him jus- 
tice in the fulness the strong should give to the weak, and 
leading him in the steadfast ways of citizenship that he may no 
longer be the prey of the unscrupulous and the sport of the 
thoughtless. The love we feel for that race you cannot measure 
nor comprehend. As I attest it here, the spirit of my old black 
mammy from her home up there looks down to bless, and 
through the tumult of this night steals the sweet music of her 
crooning, as thirty years ago she held me in her black arms and 
led me smiling into sleep. 



THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. 19 

I catch another vision. The crisis of battle — a soldier struck, 
staggering, fallen; I see a slave scuffling through the smoke, 
winding his black arms about the fallen form, reckless of the 
hurtling death, bending his trusty face to catch the words that 
tremble on the stricken lips, so wrestling meantime with agony 
that he would lay down his life in his master's stead. I see him 
by the weary bedside, ministering with uncomplaining patience, 
praying with all his humble heart that God will lift his master 
up, until death comes in mercy and in honor to still the soldier's 
agony and seal the soldier's life. I see him by the open grave, 
mute, motionless, uncovered, suffering for the death of him who 
in life fought against his freedom. 

I see him when the mound is heaped, and the great drama of 
his life is closed, turn away, and with downcast eyes and uncer- 
tain step start out into new and strange fields, falternig, strug- 
gling, but moving on, until his shambling figure is lost in the 
light of this better and brighter day. And from the grave comes 
a voice, saying : " Follow him ! Put your arms about him in 
his need, even as he once put his about me. Be his friend as 
he was mine." And out into the new world — strange to me as 
to him, dazzling, bewildering both — I follow. And may God 
forget my people — when they forget these ! 



TJie Blue and the Gray.-E.KXRY Cabot lodgb. 

I was a boy ten years old when the troops marched away to 
defend Washington. I saw the troops, month after month, 
pour through the streets of Boston. I saw Shaw go forth at 
the head of his black regiment, and Bartlett, shattered in body 
but dauntless in soul, ride by, to carry what was left of him 
once more to the battlefields of the Republic. To my boyish 
mind one thing alone was clear, that the soldiers, as they 
marched past, were all, in that supreme hour, heroes and pa- 
triots. 

And you, brave men who wore the gray, would be the first 
to hold me or any other son of the North in just contempt if I 
should say that now it was all over I thought the North was 
wrong and the result of the war a mistake. To the men who 
fought the battles of the Confederacy we hold out our hands 
freely, frankly and gladly. We have no bitter memories to 
revive, no reproaches to utter. Differ in politics and in a thou- 
sand other ways we must and shall in all good nature, but never 



20 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

let us differ with each other on sectional or state lines, by race 
or creed. 

We welcome you, soldiers of Virginia, as others more elo- 
quent than I have said, to New England. We welcome you to 
old Massachusetts. We welcome you to Boston and Faneuil 
Hall. In your presence here, and at the sound of your voices 
beneath this historic roof, the years roll back, and we see the 
figure and hear again the ringing tones of your great orator, 
Patrick Henry, declaring to the first Continental Congress: 
" The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New 
Yorkers and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Vir- 
ginian, but an American." 

A distinguished Frenchman, as he stood among the graves at 
Arlington, said : " Only a great people is capable of a great 
civil war." Let us add with thankful hearts that only a great 
people is capable of a great reconciliation. Side by side, Vir- 
ginia and Massachusetts led the Colonies into the War for Inde- 
pendence. Side by side, they founded the government of the 
United States. Morgan and Greene, Lee and Knox, Moultrie 
and Prescott, men of the South and men of the North, fought 
shoulder to shoulder, and wore the same uniform of buff and 
blue — the uniform of Washington. 

Mere sentiment all this, some may say. But it is sentiment, 
true sentiment, that has moved the world. Sentiment fought 
the war, and sentiment has reunited us. So I say that the sen- 
timent manifested by your presence here, brethren of Virginia, 
sitting side by side with those who wore the blue, tells that if 
war should break again upon the country the sons of Virginia 
and Massachusetts would, as in the olden days, stand once more 
shoulder to shoulder, with no distinction in the colors they 
wear. It is fraught with tidings of peace on earth, and you 
may read its meanings in the words on yonder picture, 
" Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable." 



From Death to Life,— henry w. Grady. 

A soldier lay wounded on a hard-fought battlefield ; the roar 
of the battle had died away, and he rested in the deathly still- 
ness of its aftermath. Not a sound was heard as he lay there, 
sorely smitten and speechless, but the shriek of wounded and 
the sigh of the dying soul, as it escaped from the turmoil of 
earth to the unspeakable peace of the stars. Off over the field 



FROM DEATH TO LIFE. 21 

flickered the lanterns of the surgeons, with the litter-bearers. 
This poor soldier watched, unable to turn or speak, as the lan- 
terns drew near. At last the light fell in his face, and the sur- 
geon bent over him, hesitated a moment, shook his head and 
was gone. The wounded soldier watched in patient agony as 
they went from one part of the field to another. As they came 
back, the surgeon bent over him again. " I believe if this poor 
fellow lives to sundown to-morrow he will get well," he said, 
and passed on. 

All night long these words fell into the wounded man's heart 
as the dews fell from the stars upon his lips, " if he but lives till 
to-morrow's sundown he will get well." He turned his weary 
head to the east and watched for the coming sun. At last the 
stars went out, the east trembled with radiance, and the sun, 
slowly lifting above the horizon, tinged his pallid face with 
flame. He watched it inch by inch as it climbed slowly up the 
heavens. He thought of life, its hopes and ambitions, its sweet- 
ness and its raptures, and he fortified his soul against despair 
until the sun had reached high noon. It sloped down its low 
descent, and his life was ebbing away and his heart was faltering, 
and he needed stronger stimulants to make him stand the strug- 
gle until the end of the day had come. He thought of his far- 
off: home, the blessed house resting in tranquil peace with the 
roses climbing to its door, and the trees whispering to its win- 
dows ; and dozing in the sunshine, the orchard, and the little 
brook running like a silver thread through the forest. 

"If I live till sundown I will see it again. I will walk down 
the shady lane, I will open the battered gate; and the mocking- 
bird shall call me from the orchard, and I will drink again at 
the old mossy spring." 

And he thought of the wife who had come from the neigbor- 
ing farm house and put her hand slyly into his, and brought 
sweetness to his life and light to his home ; he thought of the 
old father, patient in prayer, and bending low under his load of 
sorrow and old age; he thought of the little children that clam- 
bered on his knees, making to him such music as the world shall 
not equal nor heaven surpass; and then he thought of his old 
mother, who gathered these children about her and breathed her 
old heart afresh in their brightness and attuned her old lips anew 
to their prattle, that she might live till her big boy came home. 

"If I live till sundown I will see them all again, and weep 
away all memories of this desolate night." And the Son of God, 
who had died for men, bending from the stars, put His hand on 



22 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

the ebbing life and held on the staunch until the sun went down, 
and the stars came out and shone in the brave man's heart and 
blurred in his glistening eyes, and the lanterns of the surgeons 
came and he was taken from death to life. 

The world is a battlefield, strewn with the wrecks of govern- 
ments and institutions, of theories and faiths that have gone 
down in the ravages of years. On this field lies the South, sown 
with her problems. Upon the field swings the lanterns of God. 
Amid the carnage walks the great Physician. Over the South 
He bends. " If ye but live until to-morrow's sundown, ye shall 
endure, my countrymen." Let us for her sake turn our faces to 
the east and watch as the soldier watched for the coming sun. 
Let us staunch her wounds and hold steadfast. The sun mounts 
the skies. As it descends, let us minister to her and stand con- 
stant at her side for the sake of our children, and of generations 
yet unborn that shall suffer if she fails. And when the sun has 
gone down and the day of her probation has ended, and the 
stars have rallied her heart, the lanterns shall be swung over the 
field and the great Physician shall lead her upward from trouble 
into content, from suffering into peace, from death to life. 



TJie New C^n'ow.— henry watterson. 

The duty which draws us together and the day, although 
appointed by law, comes to us laden with a deeper meaning 
than they have ever borne before ; and the place which wit- 
nesses our coming, invests the occasion with increased solemnity 
and significance. Within this dread but beautiful city, con- 
secrated in all our hearts and all our homes, two plots of ground 
with but a hillock between have been set aside to mark the 
resting of the dead of two armies which in life were called 
hostile, the Army of the Union, the Army of the Confederacy. 
We come to decorate the graves of those who died fighting for 
the Union. Presently others shall come to decorate the graves 
of those who died for the Confederacy. Yet if these flower- 
covered mounds could open and those who inhabit them could 
come forth, not as disembodied spirits, but in the sentient flesh 
and blood which they wore when they went hence they would 
rejoice as we do that the hopes of both have been at last ful- 
filled, and that the Confederacy, swallowed up by the Union, 
lives again in American manhood and brotherhood, such as 
were contemplated by the makers of the republic. 



A PLEA FOR THE SOUTHERN NEGRO. 23 

To those of us who were the comrades and contemporaries 
of the dead that are buried here, who survived the ordeal of 
battle and who live to bless the day, there is nothing strange or 
unnatural in this, because we have seen it coming for a long 
time; we have seen it coming in the kinship of ties even as 
close as those of a common country; in the robust intercourse 
of the forum and the market place ; in the sacred interchanges 
of the domestic affections ; but, above all, in the prattle of little 
children who cannot distinguish between the grandfather who 
wore the blue and the grandfather who wore the gray. 



A Plea for the Southern Negro.— c. c. Smith. 

This is the picture of the negro as left by slavery ; physic- 
ally, he was impure ; mentally, a child ; morally, a curiosity ; 
socially and politically he did not exist at all. 

Suddenly the scene changes : all the old relations are broken 
up. Freed from all the restraints of the past and cast upon his 
own resources, just as he is, with the heredity of sin upon him, 
all at once he becomes his own master : he is called upon to 
govern himself and others ; to be his own educator ; turned out 
free — free to become a child of God or free to become an imp 
of Satan. 

In this new state, the first influence brought to bear upon him 
was that of the " carpet-bagger." He alienated him from his 
former master, used him as a political catspaw for the accom- 
plishment of his own corrupt purposes, and then left him to suf- 
fer the consequences. Then came the usurer, taking advantage 
of his need and his ignorance to practise upon him extortion. 
Then came the rum-seller, taking advantage of his weakness to 
debauch him with strong drink. Then came the licentious to 
prey upon his impurity. He became an easy prey for all of 
Satan's minions. He lost all the protection which slavery gave 
him and had none of the strength of a true freeman. Ignorance 
unrestrained became sin ; and lust unbridled became pollution. 
Everybody's distrust of him produced self-distrust; as no one 
believed in him, he did not believe in himself; and from that 
day to this he has slept like the swine, eaten like the dog, and 
herded like the cattle. 

Yet for these a plea may well be made. In the midst of this 
dismal swamp flowers grow, by contrast all the brighter. They 
all love their homes : tramps they are not. They love their 



24 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

country: aliens they are not. They in their way believe in 
God : atheists they are not. Commit to them a great trust and 
they will be faithful : traitors they are uot. Hopeful and 
happy they are in the midst of squalor and wretchedness : pes- 
simists they are not. They stand before us with a weird, wild, 
poetic life, so unique that our disgust is turned into interest and 
our pity to love. What the negro may become has been shown. 
You, white man of the South, know what he was when raised 
near your person. No one need tell you of his right royal gal- 
lantry and politeness, of his unique service and fidelity even 
unto death. 

The plea is not for money as alms or for him to control : this 
would but make him a pauper. It is not that you should go to 
him as a social equal ; for if you do you will lose your power to 
do him good: some one must come to him from above. Nor 
is the plea for more political power. He, in his present state, 
has no more use for it than the little child for the sharp knife. 
No one can govern a country until he has learned to govern 
himself. 

The plea is, that he shall not suffer because he is black ; and 
that he be protected in his rights by the law of the land, by the 
law administered as well as the law enacted: that he shall not 
be condemned until proved guilty. But the main plea is that 
he have a chance to become a man above the fury of the mob. 
He cannot do this for himself. The plea is then for Christian 
schools to train men and women, teachers and preachers, who 
shall lead their own from the land of bondage to the land of 
promise. 



Individualism vs. Centralization.— -Hon. Dudley g. Wooten. 

In peace and war, in business and pleasure, in religion aud 
politics, the distinguishing virtue and indispensable attribute of 
public and private morality, to which every Anglo-Saxon renders 
unqualified homage and renown, are those of loyalty to trust and 
devotion to duty. 

Transmitted to this Western World, these same traits of per- 
sonal obligation, private honor, individual responsibility and 
inalienable duty are a necessary and vital part of our social and 
political inheritance. Strike down the sense of direct moral 
obligation, obliterate the salutary restraints of private and per- 



INDIVIDUALISM w. CENTRALIZATION. 25 

sonal honor, and you eliminate the most valuable and vigorous 
factor in the manhood, independence and potential greatness of 
American society. 

It should be a source of never-failing pride and satisfaction to 
us to reflect that, of all the inhabitants of this Union of states, 
those who have heretofore most nearly preserved in their purity 
and practised in their integrity the true and undefiled laws of 
political, social and individual morality and duty, were the cit- 
izens of that vanished time and fast-vanishing race — the sons of 
the Old South. In the simple and sedate atmosphere of those 
olden days, public virtue and private integrity, business trust 
and personal honor, were inseparable ; individual manhood and 
political courage were convertible terms; social purity and a 
decorous regard for the pious convictions and sacred teachings of 
religion were accounted the attributes of true gentility, and a 
uniform courtesy, candor, fidelity and valor were the indispen- 
sable requirements of social recognition and public distinction. 
To those who vaunt the superior excellencies and practical ad- 
vantages of the New South, with its increasing wealth and rapid 
conversion to the ideas of corporate control and combined in- 
dustry, it would be both prudent and profitable to study the 
characteristics of that older civilization whose soft and tender 
charm, fading with the receding years, is yet " like the sound of 
distant music, mournful though pleasing to the soul." It was an 
age of gentle manners, but unyielding courage ; an era of cere- 
monious intercourse, but -of unbroken promises and inviolable 
faith. Under the influence of more modern conceptions of co- 
operative enterprise and incorporated industry those pristine 
virtues of personal responsibility and heroic devotion to duty 
are fast becoming unknown quantities in the social, business and 
political relations of our people. 

And at all these points of social growth and political friction 
we find the same struggle to maintain and to establish the ancient 
ideals of individualism and personal freedom against the en- 
croachments of concentrated wealth, peculiar prerogative and 
incorporated privilege. 

If now or hereafter among the representative nations of Aryan 
culture and progress, the innate and organic principles that form 
the inherited genius and fundamental law of the race develop- 
ment are ignored and violated — if individualism succumbs to 
centralization, and natural manhood is usurped by artificial citi- 
aenship, then in vain need we strive to preserve the purity and 
perpetuate the blessings of free democratic institutions, either 



26 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

here in their chosen abode or elsewhere among the struggling 
nations of the earth. 

But if we shall adhere to the ideals of our race as they have 
been developed through the ages, if we shall practise and en- 
force obedience to the primal laws of our social and political 
health as they have been demonstrated by centuries of cumu- 
lative evolution and experience, if we are true to our faith 
and firm in our courage, then the ultimate freedom and union 
of humanity are not a dreaming phantasy of political theorists, 
but, "rising on a wind of prophecy," we may even indulge the 
Apocalyptic vision of the poet : 

"When the war-drums throb no longer, and the battle-flags 

are furled, — 
In the parliament of man, the federation of the world ; 
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in 

awe, 
And the peaceful earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law." 



A Court Scene in the South.— adapted, 

It was about noon on a sultry day, that wore heavily on both 
court and jury, when the prosecution announced that it had 
finished its case. There was little excitement in the audience ; 
it was evidently a clear case of murder, the chain of evidence 
presented by the State had completely entwined the prisoner. 
A man had been stabbed ; had fallen dead, his hands clasped 
over his wound, with not an indication of defence on his part. 
From beneath his hand, when convulsively opened, a knife had 
fallen, which, it was shown, the prisoner's wife had seized and 
concealed. Why should she have concealed it if her husband 
was innocent of foul play ? 

There was marked lack of attention on the part of the jury 
when the dusky prisoner took the stand in his own behalf. He 
told his story in a straightforward, simple manner; explained 
how he had killed the deceased in self-defence ; that the knife 
had fallen from the dead man's hand, and was the one with 
which he himself had been attacked. It was apparent that 
nothing he could say would make any impression on the jury; 
they were decided as to his guilt, so, with a sigh that permeated 
the whole room, he took his seat. While the prisoner was on 
the stand, an elderly gentleman with iron-gray hair, and clad in 



A COURT SCENE IX THE SOUTH. 27 

a gray suit, entered the room and stood silently by the door. At 
the close of the prisoner's plea, the solicitor arose and in a few- 
cold words stated his case : The man had stabbed another wan- 
tonly. If the knife was the property of the deceased, why was 
it not produced in court ? The prisoner's wife had picked it 
up. With this brief summary, he passed the prisoner's life into 
the hands of the jury. The judge had arisen, and in solemn 
style was saying : " Mr. Foreman, and gentlemen of the Jury," 
when suddenly from the old gentleman in gray came the sharp 
but decisive words : " If it please your Honor, the prisoner is 
entitled to the closing argument, and, in the absence of other 
counsel, I beg you will allow me to speak for the defence." 
" Mr. Clerk," said the Court, " mark General Kobert Thomas 
for the defence." The court room, which before had been astir 
with the murmur of those present, was now deathly still. Gen- 
eral Thomas for the defence ! What could it all mean? Had 
any new evidence been discovered? Only the old man, grim, 
gray, and majestically defiant, stood between the prisoner and 
the gallows. After standing a moment and gazing about the 
court room with an air of disgust, he said with quick but quiet 
energy : " The knife that was found by the dead man's side was 
his own. He had drawn it before he was stabbed. Ben 
Thomas is a brave man; a strong man; he would never have 
used a weapon, if his antagonist had been unarmed. A brave man 
who is full of strength never draws a weapon to repel a simple 
attack. The defendant drew his knife when he saw a knife in 
the hand of his foe, not from fear, but to equalize the combat. 
Why do I say he was brave ? Every man upon this jury shoul- 
dered his musket during the war. Some of you were perhaps 
at Gettysburg ; I was there too." It was evident that the General 
had aroused a deepfelt interest by his allusion to the old days 
when all the men for miles about entered the army, and many 
had served under the old General, whose war record was a 
household legend. " I and the only brother that God ever gave 
me. I well remember that fight. The enemy met our onslaught 
with a courage and grit that could not be shaken. Line after 
line melted away, and at last came Pickett's charge. 

" You know the result. Out of that vortex of flame and that 
storm of lead and iron a handful drifted back. From one to 
another a man of black skin was seen to run. On, on he went ; 
gone one moment and in sight the next, on, up to the flaming 
cannon themselves. There he stooped and lifted a form from 
the ground ; and then, stumbling, staggering under his load, 



28 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

made his way back across that field of death, until, meeting him 
halfway, I took the burden myself from the hero and bore it 
myself to safety. That burden was the senseless form of my 
brother " — here the General paused, and walking rapidly towards 
the prisoner, he raised his arm on high, and his voice rang out 
like a trumpet, — "gashed and bleeding and mangled, but alive, 
thank God ! And the man who bore him out, who brought him 
to me in his arms as a mother would a sick child, himself torn 
by a fragment of a shell until the great heart was almost drop- 
ping from his breast, that man, my friends, sits here accused 
of murder." To add emphasis to his plea, he tore open the 
prisoner's shirt and laid bare his breast on which were the scars 
of that terrible day. " Look ! " he cried, " and bless the sight, 
for that scar was won by a slave in an hour that tried the cour- 
age of free men and put to its highest test the best manhood of 
the South. No man who won such wounds could thrust a knife 
into an unarmed assailant. I have come seventy miles in my 
old age to say this." 

The jury did not even retire, but instantly returned a verdict 
of " Not guilty ! " Some may say that this was contrary to the 
evidence, but if one could judge from] the appearance of the 
spectators, as they left the court-house, they were content. 
Even the apparently cold-hearted solicitor, who bore a scar on 
his forehead that dated back to the old days when North and 
South were estranged, received the verdict with a smile that 
indicated his approval. 



The Negro Vote hi the South.— henry w. Grady. 

The question is asked repeatedly, " When will the black man 
in the South cast a free ballot ? When will he have the civil 
rights that are his ? " 

When will the black cast a free ballot ? When ignorance 
anywhere is not dominated by the will of the intelligent; when 
the laborer anywhere casts a ballot unhindered by his boss ; 
when the strong and the steadfast do not everywhere control 
the suffrage of the weak and the shiftless. Then, but not till 
then, will the ballot of the negro be free. 

The white people of the South are banded together not in 
race prejudice against the blacks, not in sectional estrangement, 
not in the desire of political dominion, but in a deep and abid- 
ing necessity. Here is this vast ignorant and venal vote— clan- 
nish, credulous, impulsive and passionate — tempted by every 



THE NEGRO VOTE IN THE SOUTH. 29 

art of the demagogue, but insensible to the appeal of the states- 
man. Its credulity is imposed upon, its patience is inflamed, 
its cupidity is aroused, its impulses are misdirected, and even 
its superstitions made to play their part in a campaign in which 
every interest of society is jeopardized and every approach to 
the ballot box is debauched. It is against such campaigns — the 
folly and bitterness of which every Southern community has 
drunk deeply — that the white people of the South are banded 
together. Just as you in New York state would be banded if 
300,000 voters, not one in a hundred able to read his own bal- 
lot, unified by a race instinct, cherishing against you the memory 
of a hundred years of slavery, taught by your late conquerors 
to hate and distrust you, had already travestied legislation from 
your state capitol, and in every species of folly had wasted your 
substance and exhausted your credit. The negro can never 
control in the South, and it would be well if partisans in the 
North would understand this. If there is any human force 
that cannot be withstood it is the power of the banded intelli- 
gence and responsibility of a free community. Against this 
numbers and corruption cannot prevail. It cannot be forbidden 
in the law or divorced in force. It is the inalienable right of 
every free community and the just and righteous safeguard 
against an ignorant and corrupt suffrage. It is on this that we 
rely in the South, not on the cowardly meance of mask or shot- 
gun, but upon the peaceful majesty of intelligence and respon- 
sibility, massed and unified for the protection of its homes and 
the preservation of its liberties. This is our reliance and our 
hope, and against it all the powers of the earth cannot prevail. 
You may pass your force bills, but they will not avail. You 
may surrender your own liberties to a Federal election law; you 
may invite Federal interference with the New England town- 
meeting, that has stood for a hundred years as the guarantee of 
local government in America ; that old state which holds in its 
charter the boast that it is a " free and independent common- 
wealth " may surrender its own political machinery to a Federal 
government which it helped to create, but never will a single 
state, North or South, be again delivered to the control of an 
ignorant and inferior race. 

We wrested our state government from negro supremacy 
when the Federal drumbeat rolled closer to the ballot box and 
when Federal bayonets hedged it about closer than will ever 
again be permitted in this free community. But if Federal 
cannon thundered in every voting district of the South we 



30 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

would still find in the mercy of God the means and the coun 
to prevent its re-establishment. 



The Future Of the Southern Negro. -Booker T. Washington. 

No race that is so largely ignorant and so recently out of 
slavery could, perhaps, show a better record in the percentage 
of crimes committed than the negroes in the South ; and yet we 
must face the plain fact that there is too much crime among 
them. A large percentage of the crimes grow out of the idle- 
ness of our young negro men and women. It is for this reason 
that I have tried to insist that some industry be taught in con- 
nection with their course of literary training. 

No race has ever gotten upon its feet without discouragements 
and struggles. The negro, let me add, has among many of the 
Southern whites as good friends as he has anywhere in the world. 
With the best white people and the best black people standing 
together in favor of law and order and justice, I believe that the 
safety and happiness of both races will be made secure. 

We are one in this country. When one race is strong the 
other is strong ; when one is weak the other is weak. There is 
no power that can separate our destiny. Unjust laws and cus- 
toms that exist in many places injure the white man and incon- 
venience the negro. No race can wrong another race simply 
because it has the power to do so without being permanently 
injured in its own morals. If a white man steals a negro's bal- 
lot it is the white man who is permanently injured. Physical 
death comes to one negro lynched in a county, but death of 
morals comes to those responsible for the lynching. 

In the economy of God there is but one standard by which an 
individual can succeed ; there is but one for a race. This coun- 
try expects that every race shall measure itself by the American 
standard. During the next half century and mo^e the negro must 
continue passing through the severe American crucible. He is 
to be tested in his patience, his forbearance, his perseverance, 
his power to endure wrong — to withstand temptations, to econ- 
omize, to acquire and use skill — his ability to compete, to suc- 
ceed in commerce, to disregard the superficial for the real, the 
appearance for the substance, to be great and yet small, learned 
and yet simple, high and yet the servant of all. This, this is 
thb passport to all that is best in the life of our Republic, and 
the negro must possess it or be barred out. 



FRATERNALISM vs. SECTIONALISM. 31 



Fratemalism vs. Sectionalism.— Hon. s. w. t. lanham, of Texas 

I am one of those who rejoice in the belief that the very 
flower and chivalry of American manhood were eminently rep- 
resented in the soldiery of the war between the states, and I stand 
cheerful to accord the utmost credit to the virtue, the courage, 
and the patriotism of every honest actor in that contest, whether 
he worthily wore the uniform and maintained the flag of the one 
side or the other. 

In this sentiment I am joined by the men who fought for the 
Confederacy and have survived the clash of arms. I believe that 
it is reciprocated by the vast body of the old soldiers in the 
North. All that is needed to accomplish the utter destruction 
of sectionalism, so far as it may have arisen on account of the 
war, is a correct understanding of each other and a concert of 
earnest action. To whatever political organization we may be- 
long, how widely soever we may separate in other respects, it is 
not and ought not to be inconsistent with our conviction of loy- 
alty to legitimate party demands and devotion to our country's 
welfare, to combine our influence and endeavors to the upbuilding 
of citizen brotherhood and the downfall of sectional estrange- 
ment and hostility. Whoever in this day shall be tempted by 
selfish ambition, or other motive, to foster and encourage sec- 
tional feelings, is unworthy of consideration by his party asso- 
ciates, and should have left upon him a brand of excommunica- 
tion from the order of American patriotism. 

Mr. Chairman, when from the hilltop of the present, we 
overlook the plains of the next century ; when we survey our 
national magnificence of to-day, and contemplate the mighty 
possibilities of the future ; when we reflect how much has been 
accomplished in building up the waste places and healing the 
wounds made by the war ; when we consider our common origin 
and the heritage left us by our common sires ; when we realize 
the homogeneity of our ancestry and cherish together the 
memory of their immortal deeds; when we jointly admire the 
foundations they laid for popular government and behold with 
pride the stately structure of liberty and civilization erected 
thereon ; when we recognize our national kinship and anticipate 
the splendid future products of our patriotic and co-operative 
energies ; when we observe how necessary we all are to each 
other — surely, when we appreciate all these things, there is no 
room for individual resentment or sectional antagonism, but, on 



32 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

the contrary, there is every inducement for the beneficent reign 
of a cordial American fellowship. 

Indulge me, in conclusion, to say that I wish I could incite 
the old soldiers throughout the land to " the victories of peace ; " 
to wage uncompromising hostility against every species of unjust 
proscription of their fellow men ; to strike to the death the vice 
of sectionalism ; to tear down the battlements of monopoly ; to 
crush out the evils of class legislation ; to break the manacles of 
industrial captivity and commercial subjugation ; to shatter the 
bolts which lock up from the channels of trade the necessary 
supply of monetary circulation ; to batter down the prison walls 
which restrain any of the agencies and factors of our national 
growth and prosperity, and to fully enlarge all the elements 
that logically combine to make this the best government on the 
face of the earth. To this end, 

God speed the day when from North and South, all 
Shall meet as one — 
At the glad welcome of their country's call. 



A United Country. -Senator George F. Hoar. 

If cordial friendship can ever exist between two communi- 
ties, it should exist between Massachusetts and South Carolina. 
They were alike in the circumstances of their origin. The Eng- 
lish Pilgrims and Puritans founded Massachusetts, Scotch Pres- 
byterians founded Carolina, to be followed soon after by the 
French exiles fleeing from the same oppression. 

If there be a single lesson which the people of this country 
have learned from their wonderful and crowded history, it is 
that the North and South are indispensable to each other. Theyl 
are the blades of mighty shears, worthless apart, but, when 
bound by indissoluble union, powerful, irresistible, and terrible! 
as the shears of Fate. 

Whatever estrangement may have existed in the past, or may 
linger among us now, is born of ignorance and will be dis- 
pelled by knowledge. The American people have learned to 
know, as never before, the quality of Southern stock and to 
value its noble contribution to the American character; its 
courage in war, its attachment to home and state ; its love of 
rural life, its capacity for great affection and generous emotion ; 
its aptness for command ; above all, its constancy, that virtue 



NATIONAL UNITY. 33 

above all virtues, without which no people can long be either 
great or free. 

The time has come when Americans — North, South, East, and 
West — may discuss any question of public interest in a friendly 
and quiet spirit, each understanding the other, each striving to 
help the other as men who are bearing a common burden and 
looking forward with a common hope. On the whole, we are 
advancing quite as rapidly as eould be expected to the time 
when all the different races of men will live together on Ameri- 
can soil in honor and in peace, every man enjoying his just 
right wherever the American flag floats, where the influence of 
intelligence, of courage, of energy inspired by a lofty patriotism 
and a Christian love, will have its full and legitimate effect, not 
through disorder, or force, or lawlessness, but under the silent 
and sure law by which always the superior leads and the inferior 
follow. 



National U?iity.—wx. l. prathkr, 

President of the University of Texas. 

The idea of national unity is as yet young. We have been 
geographically a nation, territorially a nation, governmentally a 
nation, ethically a nation — for a century. But the development 
of a true national unity in the fullest sense of the term is one 
of the great problems for the education of the future — a problem 
whose significance and importance we must be fully awake to. 

Think of the intellectual triumphs which await a nation of 
eighty million souls, enjoying opportunities of culture that are 
accessible to all, from the meanest to the highest, untrammeled 
by artificial social distinctions, possessing a quickness of intel- 
lect and adaptability that goes hand in hand with solid and 
sturdy moral character, to form the best foundation for the best 
kind of intellectual culture ; and possessing those elements 
and characteristics in a measure and degree unequalled among 
the nations of the world. This is our opportunity, and if we 
fail to realize it, we are failing of a full conception of our 
national duty. 

One of the happiest results which the intercommunication of 
education has wrought is the larger ability to discuss philo- 
sophically, wisely, and with less passion and prejudice, the great 
questions affecting us as a nation and parts of the same nation. 



34 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

We should never forget that we are brothers, members of the 
same household ; that this nation is a family of states ; and that 
whatever affects favorably or unfavorably the welfare of one, 
affects the whole nation. We must rise to a true conception of 
this idea if we would in the future avoid sectionalism, and secure 
the welfare of the whole people rather than the welfare of a 
particular section. Truth and frankness should characterize our 
dealings with each other as individuals, as states, and as a whole 
people. One of the most potent forces now contributing to the 
development of such a national sympathy is the State Univer- 
sity. _ 

If it be true that "the arrival of democracy is the fact of our 
time, which overshadows all other facts," the very incarnation 
of true democracy is found in the modern State University. A 
university for the people without distinctions of rank is the 
regenerating thought of the new world. In the glorious prog- 
ress of American manhood and womanhood, universities are 
the torchbearers of American civilization. It is a serious error 
on the part of our politicans to charge that the great teachers 
and thinkers of our universities are mere theorists. No wiser 
step has been taken by our rulers than when they utilized in 
the affairs of government the training, the learning, and the 
wisdom of the scholars of this nation. They brought to their 
aid the lessons of all history, and bravely applied them to the 
solution of new and perplexing problems, thereby enriching the 
achievements of American statesmanship. To these great cen- 
tres of learning, planted in every state of this rapidly expanding 
union, as well as to our common schools, we must look in the 
future for that stalwart and vitalizing American sentiment which 
shall not only withstand, but shall quickly transform and assim- 
ilate, the uninstructed foreign population now flocking to our 
shores. Our safety as a people demands a wise and vigorous 
effort to educate the masses to an intelligent appreciation of the 
blessings which we as freemen enjoy. The educational forces 
of this country are doing a great work towards breaking down 
sectionalism, allaying party strife and promoting the peace, pros- 
perity and unity of this nation. 

It is my clear conviction that it would be wise for the 
American people to cease establishing new colleges and univer- 
sities, and to concentrate their efforts in strengthening those 
already founded, thereby increasing their power and efficiency. 
The State University at the head of the state system of educa- 
tion is an evolution of the best western thought, and the noblest 



EXPAND AT HOME AND NOT IN THE PHILIPPINES. 35 

civic achievement of the commonwealth. There should be the 
closest and most harmonious relation between the university 
and all the educational agencies of the state. As the university 
grows, its magnetic life should pervade every district school, 
and be an inspiration and blessing to all good learning. The 
system of elementary and secondary education should culminate 
in the university. 

If the newer universities, thus developed from the expanding 
intellectual life of our people, are tied in bonds of closest sym- 
pathy and fraternal co-operation to the older universities already 
established, and so unite with them to maintain the highest 
ideals of American life and American thought, the time is not 
far distant when American culture shall be a national culture, 
exerting on the nations of the earth an influence, as wide and 
potent as was that of Greece and Rome, in uplifting and en- 
lightening the world. 



Expand at Home and Not in the Philippines. 

D. A. DkArmond, op Missouri. 

It is argued that if we are to be the leading nation of the 
Anglo-Saxon race, we must undertake the task of governing 
the Filipinos. Sir, our tasks are here. Our duty is to our own 
people. When we have builded a greater republic here, when 
we have advanced in the development of our resources, when we 
have furnished the steady light for the guidance of the world, 
then we shall have performed well our part in history. Here is 
our theatre. Here Providence has cast our lot. Here is the 
scene of our duty. Here is the field of the glorious achieve- 
ments of our fathers. Here is the arena for our children. Why 
seek to enlarge it in the Old World ? Why seek to add to it 
that which can never be harmonized with it ? 

Some gentlemen suggest that the Filipinos shall not come in 
as citizens of the United States. What, then, do you want with 
them ? What is to be their relation to the people of this coun- 
try, if they are not to become citizens of the United States ? I 
do not wish them to be citizens of the United States. I do not 
believe in lowering the level of citizenship so that they can 
reach it. I do not believe in adding to the bulk of illiteracy, of 
venality, of corruption, that which is to come in by the incor- 
poration of the Filipinos. 

But do you say, " Let us hold them ? " What a magnificent 



36 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

spectacle that would be to the rest of the world ! What a trav- 
esty upon republicanism for the giant Republic, the exemplar 
Republic, the Republic in the van, to go into the business of 
holding colonies and subduing and governing people as the 
monarchies, absolute and despicable, do! 

What encouragement could we thus afford to struggling hu- 
manity the world over? How many thousands, aye, how many- 
millions of people, have looked across the dark scenes of the 
present, hoping to see the brighter light of the future — hoping 
to see the gleam of the star of liberty blazing in the great 
Republic of America, in the western world, and trusting that 
thence the inspiration would come, teaching that man can gov- 
ern himself, and inviting the brave, the resolute, the true, the 
generous, to escape from onerous conditions existing and par- 
take of that liberty which we Americans have long enjoyed. 

What message shall we send out to those people if, instead of 
continuing the champion of personal liberty, we now turn to be 
the oppressor? How shall we hope to maintain a Government 
such as we have so long boasted of — a Government of freemen by 
freemen — if the Government itself is to engage in the business 
of subjugating and oppressing the Filipinos, lately our allies, m 
another hemisphere ? How shall we hope, after having taken 
up the business of protecting the oppressed and affording an 
asylum to the weak and suffering throughout the whole world, 
to escape condemnation, if in turn, we, ourselves, adopt a pol- 
icy of subjugation and force rule ? 

Let us not stumble along blindfolded until the fact that we 
never have parted with any territory once regarded as our own 
may be used as an argument and a sentiment against doing what 
is certain, if we persist in this course of imperialism, soon to be 
proved necessary for our own welfare — to get away from the 
Orient and devote our energies to our own country and hemi- 
sphere, to the protection and the upbuilding of our own institu- 
tions at home. 



The Independent Voter.- Leo n. Levi. 

In every government parties are inevitable, if not necessary. 
In our government they are necessary to the perpetuity of the 
government itself. Our Constitution was a compromise; the 
machinery of our government was adopted in accordance with 
that compromise. The great struggle between the Federalists 



THE INDEPENDENT VOTER. 37 

and Republicans was relegated to posterity, and the contest still 
continues and will continue until the end. 

The logical issue of a strong and centralized government is 
illustrated in the despotism of Bismarck and the Czar. The 
logical issue of pure democracy was reached in the French revo- 
lution and the commune. In England and the United States 
the advocates of either principles are nearly evenly matched, 
and the conservatism resulting gives us the two best govern- 
ments of modern times. Nothing in our present condition 
should excite our exultation so much as the fact that the two 
great American parties are of almost equal number, ability and 
power. It insures conservatism and honesty in public affairs, 
and leaves the balance of power where it should be lodged — 
with the independent voter. The independent voter is the 
safety valve of the republic. He is the most responsible, most 
intelligent, the bravest of our citizens. He is, above all others, 
the patriot whose patriotism is neither an incident to nor a 
means of self-preservation. 

" It is base abandonment of reason to resign the right of 
thought." Such disaffection purifies and strengthens a party. 
It deposes inefficient and corrupt leaders. It is the sword of 
Damocles that is constantly suspended over the head of the 
demagogue. Were there no such independence, party leaders 
would become tyrants, and the government would be at the 
mercy of the man who best succeeded in whipping or bribing 
votes to the polls. Our government was born of the individu- 
ality and independence of the colonists. They remained loyal 
to the mother country until repeated and long-continued abuses 
made loyalty synonymous with the surrender of manhood. 
Then leaped into the full vigor of revolution the courageous 
spirit of liberty and independence. During eight years of pri- 
vation and danger, that are but half told when the power of the 
historian is exhausted, they struggled with unabated courage. 
The God of justice was with them ; and lo ! an infant nation 
sprung into life, faint, impoverished and weak, but rich in the 
heritage of freedom bequeathed by the countless martyrs of the 
past. 

The independence of the Americans was the progenitor and 
birthright of the nation. Believe me, my friends, we cannot 
surrender the basis of our grea'ness without destroying the mag- 
nificent superstructure. From independence we were born ; by it 
we have grown great ; through it, and only through indepen- 
dence can we endure. I recognize in our country the fruition 



38 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

of all the hopes and prayers that have mingled with the martyr's 
tears since the morning of time. The seed of freedom that 
could not germinate in the eastern hemisphere, in the virgin soil 
of a new continent sprung into a magnificent tree that was rooted 
on Independence day, and destined, let us trust, to flourish for 
ail time. It is because of the blessings our country is able to 
afford that I would name and guard against the dangers that 
threaten her purity, power and stability. The parasite is not 
less dangerous because we refuse to recognize its existence. 

The very genius of this occasion is loyalty to our country's 
flag, which we thus annually renew with freshened enthusiasm. 
It is well that the heart should be stirred by national anthems 
and plaudits for the national banner, but more enduring in sub- 
stance and value than anthems and hosannas is that patriotism 
that perennially burns and that should on such occasions burst 
into a flame of resolve to perpetuate and practise the revolu- 
tionary slogan, " Independence now and forever." 



Our Policy Toward Porto Rico.—s. w. t. lanham, of tkxas. 

The time has come when, in Porto Rico at least, it would 
seem that in some degree civil government is to be substituted 
for military rule. It is not to be forgotten that the people of 
this island greeted our approach and welcomed American sov- 
ereignty, and the assurances we then gave them ought to be 
constantly kept in mind and faithfully executed. They have 
not engaged in any insurrection against our authority since it 
was first asserted. No insurgency on their part has menaced 
our peace, nor tak«n the lives of our soldiery. Our flag has 
floated serenely over the Porto Ricans. That they will cheer- 
fully acquiesce in any just dominion we may establish, and 
under proper treatment from us will continue to rejoice in the 
transfer of their allegiance from Spain to the United States and 
their permanent connection with our great Union, it seems 
reasonable to assume. How shall we demean ourselves toward 
them, and what shall we do with them ? It is recorded that 
when Alexander invaded India and captured Porus, a rich and 
powerful king, he inquired of his captive how he thought he 
ought to be treated. " Like a king," was the proud answer 
made to the conqueror's question ; and it is said that Alexander 
gave him back his kingdom, to be held, however, subject to the 



EDUCATION AND CHARACTER. 39 

Macedonian crown. How shall wc treat the Porto Ricans, and 
what treatment have they the right to expect at our hands ? 
Are they less deserving- than was Poms, the Indian king ? Are 
we less magnanimous than was the ancient Grecian warrior ? Is 
there with us more of barbarism and less of human toleration 
in the closing year of the nineteenth century than there was 
with the heathen in 327 B. C. ? Is the spirit of American greed 
stronger than was the rapacity of Grecian conquest ? Is Punic 
faith a trait of American character ? We must either treat this 
people like Americans, or as an alien race unworthy of sharing 
the blessings of our Government and beyond the pale of our 
Constitution. 

As a patriotic American, I would not have my country shirk 
any proper responsibility or evade any duty it owes to itself or 
to those whom the fortunes of war have placed within its care 
and keeping and beneath its shield and protection. I earnestly 
desire that it should suitably discharge every honorable obliga- 
tion resting upon it and mete out entire justice, both to its per- 
fect and inchoate citizens. It cannot afford to do wrong. Its 
conscience must be preserved and its good name and national 
character and plighted faith must be maintained. I earnestly 
pray that it may be equal to every present and future emer- 
gency ; that it may hold fast to the faith of the fathers, and 
that every " blessing of liberty " may continue to abide with us 
and be transmitted unimpaired to those who shall come after us. 



Education and Character.- wm. l. Prather. 

Education is the most important subject that can engage the 
attention of young men and women. When Aristotle was 
asked in what way the educated differed from the uneducated, 
he replied : "As the living differ from the dead." 

In the early part of our history the American college was 
largely ecclesiastical, and young men attended college to study 
church creeds. Gradually, however, the college became a civil 
and political institution. When the commonwealth, realizing 
that a general diffusion of knowledge was essential to the pres- 
ervation of the liberties and rights of the people, undertook 
the great duty of educating its children, and each state of the 
Union established a university at the head of its system of 
public education, the American university passed to a higher 



40 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

and broader plane, and now lias for its object the preparation 
of men and women for all the high duties of citizenship. 

This university was established by Texans for Texans, and 
must be administered for Texans. Every officer and employee 
should be imbued with a patriotic desire to serve this great 
commonwealth. Every young man and young woman educated 
within these walls owes it to the state to repay its outlay for 
them. 

The greatest good that can come into the life of a human 
being through the process of education is a personal richness 
and beauty. "Education is not to make us seem to be greater 
to the world, but that the world and all life and all eternity may 
seem greater and richer and more beautiful to us." 

Let me hold up to you the beauty and glorious possibilities 
of the youth with which you are endowed. Do you realize what 
a peerless privilege it is to be young ? Youth is admitted by all to 
be the most fascinating period of life, with its freshness, its enthu- 
siasm and confidence, frankly responding to every act of kind- 
ness and opening the heart to every overture of love. It has 
been said, " Youth is the time when we own the world and the 
fulness thereof. Youth, like Napoleon, sees the world and 
proceeds to conquer it. Youth sees mountains and dares to 
climb them ; stone walls, and dares to beat them down; chasms, 
and dares to bridge them." Youth here at the beginning of the 
twentieth century has all history and all lands for its demesne, 
though it may live in a cottage or a cabin. It has for its birth- 
right every discovery, every invention, every conquest since the 
world began. Youth, for which the cave dwellers made their 
rude implements of stone as they groped their way in the dawn 
of human evolution. Youth, for whom Shakespeare wrote, for 
whom Newton and Kepler and Edison solved the mysteries of 
the world, and for whom the twentieth century is preparing to 
open its golden gates of promise. 

Let me emphasize the fact that character is above everything. 
It is the only indestructible material in destiny's fierce crucible. 
Character is itself a rank and an estate. Character stands in 
majesty unawed and unmoved before men and devils. Char- 
acter stands confident and trustful in the presence of God him- 
self. Genius, so often lauded, fails frequently of its aim for 
want of character to support it. The men upon whom society 
leans are men of proved honor, rectitude and consistency, whose 
sterling character gives pledge of faithfulness to every trust com- 
mitted to them. 



REUNITED. 41 

Thackeray says: " Nature has written a letter of credit upon 
some men's faces which is honored wherever presented. There 
is a l promise to pay ' in their faces that inspires confidence, and 
you prefer it to another man's indorsement." As the rivulet 
scoops out the valley, moulds the hillside and carves the moun- 
tain's face, so the stream of thought sculptures the soul into 
grace, mellows the heart to tenderness and love, and these are 
mirrored in the countenance. 

In summing- np all I would say to you, let me borrow the fine 
phrase of a gifted man of our own time : 

" Live out truly your human life as a human life ; not as a 
supernatural life, for you are a man and not an angel; not as a 
sensual life, for you are a man and not a brute ; not as a wicked 
life, for you are a man and not a demon ; not as a frivolous life, 
for you are a man and not an insect. Live each day the true 
life of a man to-day ; not yesterday's life only, lest you become 
a visionary ; but the life of happy yesterdays and confident to- 
morrows — the life of to-day, unwounded by the Parthian arrows 
of yesterday and undarkened by the possible cloudland of to- 
morrow." 



Reunited.— William McKinlky. 

I cannot withhold from these people my profound thanks for 
their hearty reception and the good will which they have shown 
me everywhere and in every way since I have been their guest. 
I thank them for the opportunity which this occasion gives me 
of meeting and greeting them and for the pleasure it affords me 
to participate with them in honoring the army and navy, to 
whose achievements we are indebted for one of the most bril- 
liant chapters of American history. 

Under hostile fire, on a foreign soil, fighting in a common 
cause the memory of old disagreements has faded into history. 
From camp and campaign there comes the magic healing which 
has closed ancient wounds and effaced their scars. For this 
result every American patriot will forever rejoice. It is no 
small indemnity for the cost of war. 

The government has proved itself invincible in the recent war, 
and out of it has come a nation which will remain indivisible 
forevermore. No worthier contributions have been made in 
patriotism and in men than by the people of these Southern 
States. When at last the opportunity came they were eager 



42 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

to meet it and with promptness responded to the call of the 
country. Intrusted with the able leadership of men dear to 
them, who had marched with their iathers under another nag, 
now fighting under the old flag again, they have gloriously 
helped to defend its spotless folds and added new lustre to its 
shining stars. 

That flag has been planted in two hemispheres, and there it 
remains, the symbol of liberty and law, of peace and progress. 
Who will withdraw from the people over whom it floats its pro- 
tecting folds ? Who will haul it down ? 

The victory we celebrate is not that of a ruler, a President, or 
of a Congress, but of the people. The army whose valor we 
admire and the navy whose achievements we applaud were not 
assembled by draft or conscription, but by voluntary enlistment. 
The heroes came from civil as well as military life. Trained 
and untrained soldiers wrought our triumphs. 

The peace we have won is not a selfish truce of arms, but one 
whose conditions presage good to humanity. The domains se- 
cured by the treaty yet to be acted upon by the Senate came to 
us, not as the result of a crusade of conquest, but as the reward 
of temperate, faithful, and fearless response to the call of con- 
science, which could not be disregarded by a liberty-loving and 
Christian people. 

We have so borne ourselves in the conflict and in our inter- 
course with the powers of the world as to escape complaint of 
complication and give universal confidence in high purpose and 
unselfish sacrifices for struggling peoples. The task is not ful- 
filled. Indeed, it is only just begun. This is the time for 
earnest, not faint hearts. The most serious work is still before 
us, and every energy of heart and mind must be bent and the 
impulses of partisanship subordinated to its faithful execution. 

This war was waged, not for revenge or aggrandizement, but 
for our oppressed neighbors, for their freedom and amelioration. 
It was short but decisive. It recorded a succession of significant 
victories on land and sea. It gave new honors to American 
arms. It has brought new problems to the Republic, whose 
solution will tax the genius of our people. United we will meet 
and solve them with honor to ourselves and to the lasting bene- 
fit of all concerned. The war brought us together ; its settle- 
ment will keep us together. 

Reunited ! Glorious realization ! It expresses the thought of 
my mind and the long-deferred consummation of my heart's 
desire as I stand in this presence. It interprets the hearty 



A PLEA FOR CUBA. 43 

demonstration here witnessed and is the patriotic refrain of all 
sections and of all lovers of the Republic. 

Reunited ! One country again and one country forever ! 
Proclaim it from the press and pulpit ! Teach it in the schools ! 
Write it across the skies ! The world sees and feels it ! It cheers 
every heart, North and South, and brightens the life of every 
American home. Let nothing ever strain it again. At peace 
with all the world and with each other, what can stand in the 
pathway of our progress and prosperity ? 



A Plea for Cuba.-Jomi M. Thurston. 

I am here by command of silent lips to speak once and for 
all upon the Cuban situation. I shall endeavor to be honest, 
conservative and just. I have no purpose to stir the public 
passion to any action not necessary and imperative to meet the 
duties and necessities of American responsibility, Christian hu- 
manity and national honor. I would shirk this task if I could, 
but I dare not. I cannot satisfy my conscience except by speak- 
ing and speaking now. 

The pictures in the American newspapers of the starving 
reconcentrados are true. They can all be duplicated by the 
thousands. I never saw, and please God I may never again see, 
so deplorable a sight as the reconcentrados in the suburbs of 
Matanzas. I can never forget to my dying day the hopeless 
anguish in their despairing eyes. Men, women and children 
stand silent — famishing with hunger. Their only appeal comes 
from their sad eyes, through which one looks as through an 
open window into their agonizing souls. The government of 
Spain has not and will not appropriate one dollar to save these 
people. They are now being attended and nursed and admin- 
istered to by the charity of the United States. Think of the 
spectacle ! We are feeding these citizens of Spain ; we are 
nursing their sick ; we are saving such as can be saved, and yet 
there are those who still say it is right for us to send food, but 
we must keep hands off. I say that the time has come when 
muskets ought to go with the food. 

I shall refer to these horrible things no further. They are 
there. God pity me, I have seen them ; they will remain in my 
mind forever — and this is almost the twentieth century. Christ 
died nineteen hundred years ago, and Spain is a Christian na- 
tion. She has set up more crosses in more lands, beneath more 



44 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

skies, and under them has butchered more people than all the 
other nations of the earth combined. 

Europe may tolerate her existence as long as the people of 
the Old World wish. But God grant that before another 
Christinas morning the last vestige of Spanish oppression and 
tyranny will have vanished from the Western Hemisphere. 

Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Vermont has 
seen all these things; he knows all these things; he has de- 
scribed all these things ; but after describing them he says he has 
nothing to propose, no remedy to suggest. I have. I am only 
a humble unit in the great government of the United States, 
but I should feel myself a traitor did I remain silent now. 

The time for action has come. No greater reason for it can 
exist to-morrow than exists to-day. Every hour's delay only 
adds another chapter to the awful story of misery and death. 
Only one power can intervene — the United States of America. 
Ours is the one great nation of the New World, the mother of 
American Republics. She holds a position of trust and respon- 
sibility toward the peoples and the affairs of the whole Western 
Hemisphere. 

Mr. President, there are those who say that the affairs of 
Cuba are not the affairs of the United States, who insist that we 
can stand idly by and see that island devastated and depopu- 
lated, its business interests destroyed, its commercial intercourse 
with us cut off, its people starved, degraded and enslaved. It 
may be the naked, legal right of the United States to stand thus 
idly by. 

I have the legal right to pass along the streets and see a help- 
less dog stamped into the earth under the heels of a ruffian. I 
can pass by and say that is not my dog. I can sit in my com- 
fortable parlor with my loved ones gathered about me, and 
through my plate-glass window see a fiend outraging a helpless 
woman near by, and I can legally say this is no affair of mine — 
it is not happening on my premises ; and I can turn away and 
take my little ones in my arms, and, with the memory of their 
sainted mother in my heart, look up to the motto on the wall 
and read, " God bless our home." But if I do, I am a coward 
and a cur, unfit to live, and, God knows, unfit to die. And yet 
I cannot protect the dog nor save the woman without the exer- 
cise of force. 

We cannot intervene and save Cuba without the exercise of 
force, and force means war; war means blood. The lowly 
Nazarene on the ehores of Galilee preached the divine doctrine 



LITTLE GIFFEN, OF TENNESSEE. 45 

of love, "Peace on earth, good will toward men." Not peace 
on earth at the expense of liberty and humanity. Not good 
will toward men who despoil, enslave, degrade, and starve to 
death their fellow-men. I believe in the doctrine of Christ. 1 
believe in the doctrine of peace ; but Mr. President, men must 
have liberty before there can come abiding peace. 

The time for God's force has come again. Let the impas- 
sioned lips of American patriots once more take up the song : 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was borne across the sea, 
With a glory in His bosom that transfigured you and me ; 
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, 
For God is marching on. 

Others may hesitate, others may procrastinate, others may 
plead for further diplomatic negotiation, which means delay, 
but for me, I am ready to act now, and for my action I am ready 
to answer to my conscience, my country and my God. 

Mr. President, in the cable that moored me to life and hope 
the strongest strands are broken. I have but little left to offer 
at the altar of Freedom's sacrifice, but all I have I am glad to 
give. I am ready to serve my country as best I can in the 
Senate or in the field. My dearest wish, my most earnest prayer 
to God is this, that when death comes to end all, I may meet it 
calmly and fearlessly as did my beloved, in the cause of human- 
ity under the American flag. 



Little Giffen, of Tennessee. 

The story of Little Giffen is said to be literally true. His name 
was Isaac Giffen, and he was born of humble parents in one»of the 
hamlets of East Tennessee. His father was a blacksmith. Little 
Giffen was terribly shot in one of the battles of Tennessee, and car- 
ried with other wounded far south to be cared for. Sadly mutilated, 
and so like a child in appearance as to have seemed "borne by the 
tide of war from the cradle to the jaws of death," he was taken from 
the hospital to Columbus, Ga., to the home of Dr. Y. O. Tichnor, five 
miles south of that place. He remained with the family a year, but 
was always anxious to return to the war, which he did in time to be 
killed near Atlanta, it is supposed, and to be buried in one of the 
numerous graves in Oakland cemetery which bear the melancholy 
legend, " Unknown " The poem was written by Dr. Y. O. Tichnor : 

Oat of the focal and foremost fire, 
Out of the hospital walls as dire, 



46 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Smitten of grapeshot and gangrene, 
(Eighteen battles and he sixteen !) 
Spectre ! such as you seldom see, 
Little Giffen, of Tennessee ! 

" Take him and welcome," the surgeon said ; 
" Little the doctor can help the dead." 
So we took him, and brought him where 
The balm was sweet in the summer air; 
And we laid him down on a wholesome bed — 
Utter Lazarus from heel to head ! 

And we watched the war with a bated breath, 

Skeleton boy against skeleton death, 
Months of torture, how many such ? 
Weary weeks of the stick and crutch; 
And still the glint of the steel-blue eye 
Told of a spirit that wouldn't die. 

And didn't. Nay, more ! in death's despite 
The crippled skeleton learned to write. 
" Dear Mother," at first, of course, and then 
" Dear Captain," inquiring about the men. 
Captain's answer : " Of eighty and five, 
Giffen and I are left alive." 

Word of gloom from the war one day: 

Johnson pressed at the front, they say. 

Little Giffen was up and away ; 

A tear, his first, as he bade good-bye, 

Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye ; 

" Fll write, if spared ! " There was news of the fight, 

But none of Giffen — he did not write. 

I sometimes fancy that were I king 

Of the princely Knight of the Golden Ring, 

With the song of the minstrel in mine ear, 

And the tender legend that trembles here, 

Pd give the best on his bended knee, 

The whitest soul of my chivalry, 

For " Little Giffen, of Tennessee." 



DEVELOPMENT OF SOUTHERN RESOURCES. 47 

On the Development of Southern Resources. 

Wm. H. Garland, 

It is pleasing, with folded arms, to stand and gaze at the gor- 
geous sunset ; to mark each floating cloud as it is touched with 
its golden fringe, and weave fancy after fancy into a bright tis- 
sue for the future ; thus to stand until the stars peep out, an i 
then, with a bound of the spark ethereal, which gives life and 
variety to man's thoughts, pass from star to star, peopling them 
with our thoughts, and filling them with our fancies ; but while 
we are pursuing these fancies of the mind, Nature in her changes 
reminds us, by the gathering darkness and falling dew, that 
man's life was not to be all a dream, but that on him rested 
high responsibilities ; that while he was thus indulging in pleasing 
fancies, and permitting the mind to waste itself in dreams, he 
was neglecting the development of those blessings which Nature 
has so bounteously bestowed on him. 

In this day and time, when the mind is exercising its sover- 
eignty over matter, the truth is felt and recognized that the gath- 
ering of the fruit, and the enjoyment of the blessings of Heaven, 
belongs not to the inert and slothful, but to those who, by the 
employment of those faculties of the mind with which a good 
God has blessed them, render the things of this world subservi- 
ent to the great ends of their creation, the happiness and per- 
fection of man. Let not, then, this convention waste its time on 
the pleasing fancies that cluster around abstract questions, but let 
it, like that circlet of stars, cluster around one great idea, until 
their concentrated rays shall form one burning centre, so bright 
that the path which leads to the power, prosperity, and happiness 
of the south shall be so plain that none will hesitate. 

What this idea should be, it is only necessary for us to look 
abro?»'l to our sister states, and see the rapid strides which some 
of them have made to greatness and wealth. But a few years 
since New York occupied but a secondary position in the con- 
federation of states : now she is the empire state in popula- 
tion, wealth, and power. The genius of her Clinton opened her 
western resources, and filled her forests with a teeming popula- 
tion. The mind of her people indulged not in pleasing dreams, 
but was directed to the development of those gifts with which 
God had blessed them. Ohio caught the bright spirit of prog- 
ress, and her lines of improvement, by penetrating every corner 
have filled her rich valleys with a teeming population, and mad* 
he 1 one of the first states of the Union. Georgia, first of tne 
Southern States, was roused to the employment of her energies; 



48 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

and now her barren plains are the abode of ] -^auctive industry* 
and the happy cottage marks each of her mour r ain passes. 

From these let us gather wisdom, and by the employment of 
the bright, noble spirit of the south, develop those advantages 
which Nature has so bounteously bestowed on us. Carry your 
lines of improvement to every section, and thus open for it a 
highway for the transfer of the- productions of its industry, and 
you will soon bring wealth and power to the south. 

Much has been said of the unequal influence of the south in 
the hall of Congress, and resolution upon resolution has been 
offered on the subject; but this will not rectify the inequality. 
To do this let the mind of the south be directed to the develop- 
ment of the advantages which Nature has so bounteously be- 
stowed on her, and thus fill her now waste lands with a teeming 
population. This increased population will bring her increased 
representation on the floors of Congress, and to this, and this 
alone are we to look for an equalization of power. 



The Same, continued. 

It is not, Mr. President, by passing resolutions, or indulging in 
pleasing fancies, that our object is to be attained ; but the mind 
must act upon matter, and give to it a practical application to 
the concerns of life. In the discussions of the Pacific Railroad, 
New Orleans, and even Louisiana, seem to have been forgotten. 
The important position which we occupy to the trade of the 
Valley of the Mississippi has been overlooked. When the At- 
lantic shall have been linked to the Pacific by a line of improve- 
ment, New Orleans must become one of the most important 
cities of the world. When the trade of the Indies shall pour 
all its commerce along these lines, it must be in the lap of New 
Orleans that this rich traffic must be first poured — from its 
warehouses to be diffused through the broad Valley of the Mis- 
sissippi. Not only this, but the immense and constantly in- 
creasing productions of the North-western States will have to 
find a mart in some other land than Europe. 

Where is it to be, save in the Indies, and the constancy in- 
creasing traffic of the Gulf — where the song of liberty, freighted 
wit'i all of its luippiness, shall go bounding 

«« O'er the glad waters of the dark, blue wave, 

With hopes as boundless, and with thoughts as free," 

until the islands of the Gulf shall echo <ack the glad tidings ? 



DEVELOPMENT OF SOUTHERN RESOURCES. 43 

There shall we find in those sunny lands a mart for our pro- 
ductions. When this shall be, and the Indies pour a.ong our 
lines of improvement their wealth, the United States will become 
what England now is — the storehouse of the world. And that 
this is no fanciful idea, it is only necessary to note the passing 
events. Make these improvements, and your communication 
from Canton, by New Orleans and New York to Loudon, will 
be made in forty-five days, while now the shortest time across 
the Isthmus of Suez is sixty-two days ; making so great a differ- 
ence in time that all mercantile men will understand that it must 
revolutionize that commerce. 

How is this mighty line of communication to be made ? Al- 
ready have we lines of railroads constructed, or in the process 
of construction, reaching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. 
These are met by lines stretching far into the west, from New 
Orleans, Vicksburg, and other points. Give to these lines, if 
not your money, at least the support of your approbation. Do 
this, and the day is not distant when the whistle that wakes on 
the Atlantic will be heard on the shores of the Pacific. Let 
these lines be pressed forward to completion, and when they shall 
meet in the far west in fraternal embrace, then let the general 
government welcome them, and carry them to completion. 

Much has been said about the prejudices of the present, and 
the holy memories of the past. If you would remove the one 
and perpetuate the other, extend your lines of improvements so 
that the different sections may be brought into closer contact, 
and thus, by knowing each other better, learn to judge more 
charitably and more justly. If you would perpetuate the past, 
let your sons go to the plains of Lexington, and there read the 
heroism of the past ; let them stand on the cliffs of Yorktown, 
and look upon the waters that were lashed into a storm by the 
very finger of Heaven to protect our land, and there gather up 
the holy memories of the past, and feel their hearts to expand 
and their thoughts to be elevated to emulate the deeds of their 
fathers ; and let, too, their sons visit our warm and sunny south, 
and while gazing upon the fields made memorable by southern 
valor and the heroism of a Jackson, feel in their hearts the 
enthusiasm that warms the southern bosom for this glorious 
Union. Thus let them gather up all their memories, and in the 
high and noble resolves which they will prompt, let them 

" Snatch from the ashes of their sires 
The embers of their former fires, 
And leave their sons a hope, a fame, 
Thev, too, would rather die than shame." 
4 



50 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Influence of Lofty Thoughts and Noble Sentiments 

Albert Pike, 

There were noble and brave deeds done by woman during 
our war of independence, that have exercised a greater influ- 
ence on the destinies of the American people than all the legis- 
lation of a century. I have spoken elsewhere of Mrs. Motte, 
who supplied to Marion the arrows tipped with fire, wherewith 
io burn down her own property occupied by the enemy. Should 
war ever again call on the youth of South Carolina to rally to 
the support of the starry flag of our common country, that 
single act of devotion and heroism would exert more influence 
than all the legislation since the existence of our country com- 
menced. And a noble thought or high sentiment uttered here 
may be mightier for a century to come than all the legislation 
of the Union or the victories of Napoleon. Such words and 
thoughts are the noblest estate of the people among which they 
are uttered. 

There are single passages in the writings of Daniel Webster 
that will exercise more influence upon the youth of America than 
all the statutes of this Union. There are songs written by men 
whose names are now forgotten that are more to the American 
people than a regiment of bayonets. " Let him who will make 
the laws of a nation, if I may but make its songs," was well and 
truly said. The apparently trifling song of Lillibullero was the 
chief cause of the downfall of James II. How much influence 
do you imagine the songs of our own country are exerting ? Do 
you imagine that we should make a profitable bargain in case of 
a new war, by exchanging the song of Yankee Doodle for fifty 
thousand foreign soldiers led by a field marshal ? This is a 
kind of property you can not trade away with profit. You can 
not profitably part with your lofty thoughts and noble sentiments 
any more than we can profitably part with our own souls. 

This kind of property we can create in this convention. You 
can utter noble thoughts, you can erect imperishable monuments 
that shall live from age to age. It is the proudest object of the 
human mind to utter a thought that shall live through all coming 
time. Mr. President, if this convention and its three predeces- 
sors shall succeed in uttering one single thought that shall live 
through all time, it will have amply repaid the labor of its mem- 
bers, and have given them the happy assurance that they have 
done something for their country and their age. It has been said 
that a monument is the embodiment of a single lofty spntiment 



REPRODUCTIVE IMMORTALITY OF LANGUAGE. 51 

in marble. I would have this convention aid in budding such a 
monument, not in marble, but in iron — an arm of iron extending 
across the continent and clutching the Pacific in its grasp ; and 
when that monument is built, that embodiment of the great idea 
of the age, if some one standing near it while the commerce 
of the world goes rushing by him as on the wings of the wind, 
and after our bones have moldered into dust, should say with 
truth that to this convention now assembled in New Orleans that 
great work was in any degree owing, we should be amply repaid 
for all our labors in the cause of our country. 



Reproductive Immortality of Language. 

Rev. H. B. B as com. 

Language never dies, and the perpetuity and multiplication of 
thought, in the shape of philosophy, science, poetry, religion, 
and the arts, are not only coincident possibilities, but necessarily 
adjunctive conceptions and resulting developments. Where now 
are the temples and palaces, the catacombs and monuments, of 
antiquity ? And of those that do remain, how many are the 
chances and changes threatening their destruction ? An earth- 
quake might give the pyramids of the Nile or the grandeur of 
Rome to oblivion. The mere sacking of a city might annihilate 
the Apollo Belvedere or the Venus de' Medici ; but how many 
of earth's proudest dynasties have not thought and language sur- 
vived by thousands of years ! 

What revolutions of time, and events of various mundane in- 
terest, have not occurred since the first man and woman were 
expelled from the Eden of their innocence ! And yet the record 
lives. Homer is no more. Of his history we know but little, 
of his ashes nothing ; and yet, by means of language, he has 
indissolubly bound the world to the throne of his genius, through- 
out all generations. Accident threw Demosthenes upon the 
notice of the world, in the city of Minerva ; as interest or emer- 
gency required, for a few successive years, he threw the thunder 
of his unequaled eloquence upon the starlled ear of Greece, 
and then disappeared with the generation to which he belonged ; 
but by means of letters, Demosthenes shall continue the mode 
of the senate and the bar, until the world shall have no use foT 
eithei ! 



62 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Franklin } s Toast. 

Long after Washington's victories over the French and English 
had made his name familiar to all Europe, Dr. Franklin had 
chanced to dine with the English and French embassadors, when, 
as nearly as we can recollect the words, the following toasts were 
drank : — 

By the British embassador : " England, the sun, whose bright 
beams enlighten and fructify the remotest corners of the earth." 

The French embassador, glowing with national pride, but too 
polite to dispute the previous toast, drank, " France, the moon y 
whose mild, steady, and cheering rays are the delight of all na- 
tions, consoling them in darkness, and making their dreariness 
beautiful. " 

Dr. Franklin then arose, and with his usual dignified simplicity, 
said, " George Washington, the Joshua who commanded the 
sun and moon to stand still, and they obeyed him." 



The March of Improvement 

The arts and sciences, aided by the bold, inventive genius of 
prolific mind, have brought mankind from the clumsy devices of 
dark ages to the cultivated usages of a high civilization. The 
mighty war steamer, or the graceful ship that " walks the water 
like a thing of life," directed with unerring certainty by the 
compass, has superseded the rude galley of Phoenicia and Car- 
thage ; the beast of burden has yielded to the locomotive ; the 
panting courier to Morse's magnetic telegraph ; and the engines 
of Archimedes, historic with ancient Syracuse, to Colt's sub- 
marine battery. 

Natural History, the priestess of nature, has called around 
her all the varieties of objects in the animal, mineral, and vege 
Table kingdoms, and has assigned to them their names and clas 
sifications. Chemistry has fathomed the mysteries of nature 
and taught us in 'he elements of matter the properties of thesf 
elements, and unfolded their laws of combination. She has be 
come the great physician of diseased and decaying nature. The 
safety lamp, the lightning rod, and magnetic masks, to repel the 
floating atoms of steel so fatal to the operatives in the needle 
manufactories, are among the gifts of science. 

Astronomy, too — shall I omit to speak of ; ts advances? 



THE MISER. {ft 

Once a mystic art, ki wn only as the vague and shadowy astrol- 
ogy of Chaldean and Egyptian priests, it has now become a grand 
and demonstrative science. By furnishing an exact measure- 
ment of time it has dispensed with the toilsome and anxious 
watches, common among the Egyptians and ancient Greeks, to 
discover the rising of the star Sirius, of Arcturus, the Pleiades, 
and Orion. 

By revealing the causes of these phenomena it has dispelled 
the superstitious fears that the comet was the fiery soul of Caesar, 
seeking vengeance upon his murderers, or that it is to be intim- 
idated by the thunders of the church ; and that the eclipse was a 
monster devouring the sun, to be scared away by a volley of 
Turkish musketry, or to be wailed as some terrible evil by the 
Moorish song of death. In short, it has spread the chart of the 
heavens before us, and taught us familiarly, in a knowledge of 
the stars, the motions, relations, and laws of the great bodies of 
the um'/erse. 

But why dwell upon illustrations ? Why attempt to recount 
the evidences of the march of mind, the progress of improve- 
ment ? As the crowding figures of a dazzling panorama, they 
charm whilst they defy enumeration. The task would be almost 
as vain as the effort to count the leaves of the forest, or the stars 
that glitter in the firmament. Suffice it to say, they constitute 
the distinction of the present age, and the hopeful pledge of a 
perpetually progressive future. 



The Miser.— Captain G. W. Cttttkk. 

An old man sat by a fireless hearth, 

Though the night was dark and chill, 
And mournfully over the frozen earth 

The wind sobbed loud and shrill. 
His locks were gray, and his eyes were gray. 

And dim, but not with tears ; 
And his skeleton form had wasted away 

With penury more than years. 

A. rushlight was casting its fitful glare 

O'er the damp and dingy walls. 
Where the lizard hath made his slimy lair. 

x\nd the venomous spider crawls ; 



54 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

But the meanest thing in this lonesome room 

Was the miser all worn and bare, 
When he sat like a ghost on an empty tomb, 

On his broken and only chair. 

He had bolted the window and barred the door, 

And every nook he had scanned, 
And feit the fastening o'er and o'er, 

With his cold and skinny hand ; 
And yet he sat gazing intently round, 

And trembled with silent fear, 
And startled and shuddered at every sound 

That fell on his coward ear. 

;t Ha, ha ! " laughed the miser ; " I'm safe at lasi 

From the night so cold and drear, 
From the drenching rain and the driving blast, 

With my gold and treasure here. 
I am cold and wet with the icy rain, 

And my health is bad, 'tis true ; 
Yet if I should light that fire again 

It would cost me a cent or two. 

" But I'll take a sip of the precious wine ; 

It will banish my cold and fears ; 
It was given long since by a friend of mine ; 

I have kept it for many years." 
So he drew a flask from a moldy nook, 

And drank of its ruby tide ; 
And his eyes grew bright with each draught he took, 

And his bosom swelled with pride. 

" Let me see ; let me see ! " said the miser then ; 

" 'Tis some sixty years or more 
Since the happy hour when I began 

To heap up the glittering store ; 
And well have I sped with my anxious toil, 

As my crowded chest will show ; 
I've more than would ransom a kingdom's spoil 

Or an emperor could bestow. 

" From the Orient realm I have rubies bright, 
And gold from the famed Peru ; 



INDIVIDUAL INFLUENCE. 55 

I've diamonds would shame the stars of night 

And pearls like the morning dew ; 
And more I'll have ere the morrow's sun 

His rays from the west shall fling ; 
That widow, to free her prisoned son, 

Shall bring me her bridal ring ! " 

He turned to an old worm-eaten chest, 

And cautiously raised the lid, 
And then it shone like the clouds in the west, 

With the sun in their splendor hid ; 
And gem after gem, in precious store, 

Are raised with exulting smile ; 
And he counted and counted them o'er and o'er, 

t ji many a glittering pile. 

Ah, why comes the flush on his pallid brow, 

While his eyes like his diamonds shine ? 
Why writhes he thus in such torture now ? 

What was there in the wine ? 
His lonely seat he strove to regain • 

To crawl to his nest he tried ; 
But finding his efforts were all in vain, 

He clasped his gold, and — died. 



Individual Influence.— 'Rm. Dr. Drake. 

I have long accustomed myself to feel a deep and abiding 
interest in whatever concerns my race. I am an integral part 
)f the great whole, and as small an atom as I may be, I am taugh.. 
to believe that every other atom in the universe is more or les» 
•fected by my conduct. " No man liveth to himself," and in 
jrae material sense, every man is his brother's keeper. " That 
golden chain " which binds us to the throne of God with a felt 
responsibility for all our actions, links us in indissoluble fraternity 
with the whole brotherhood of man. " If one ink drop on a 
solitary thought has stirred the minds of millions, or a brief human 
breath has disturbed the surrounding atmosphere, so as to com- 
municate itself to the entire system of the universe, how carefui 
should we be that the impulse we give be in the right direction ! " * 

Fad a philanthropic seer stood on the shores of Spain, when 

* Mrs. Sigourney. 



66 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

the frail jarks of Uoiumbus set sail for the discovery of th*» rv5<v 
world, and had foreseen the success which crowned that dubious 
enterprise — the waking of the slumbering nations of Europe — 
the increase of the enterprise and commerce of the nations — the 
.immense wealth which rolled back on the old world — the civil- 
ization and Christianity which found their way to the new — 
especially had he marked one luminous spot on the eastern coast 
of North America, where he saw a mighty nation rise up like a 
p haros on the dark ocean of political despotism and religious 
intolerance, guiding all who would follow her light to freedom 
and toleration — had he seen this luminous spot spreading itself 
from sea to sea, and sending its messengers to all lands, and be- 
coming influential in all that concerns the entire race of man — 
with all this in tne prophet's vision, how earnestly would he have 
gazed at the gallant barks as they plunged the untried wave, 
lifting up his prayer to God for a prosperous voyage, and giving 
any item of information that might be useful to the expedition ! 

Thus it is when I see youthful voyagers just about to be 
launched on what is to them the untried sea of active life. They 
may not be in search of a new world, but it is vastly important 
that they should escape the corruptions of the old. They may 
not plant new colonies, but they seek a better country. When I 
consider the preciousness of the freight which they bear, the ever- 
widening and deepening influence which their successful voyage 
will produce, I can not but feel a deep solicitude for their safety 
and success. 



Moral Independence. 

Pcptjlar sentiment marshals her forces, and endeavors to drive 
the man of moral independence from his lofty position; she 
frowns and threatens, smiles and flatters ; he hears the angry 
g lrges dashing around him, is fully conscious of his danger, an 
yet remains firm as the wave-beaten rock. Our peculiar con- 
dition as a people demands a host of such men, yet we fear the 
number among us is small. How many of our young men take 
counsel of their passions, their prejudices, their interests, or their 
ease, rather than follow the plain dictates of truth and virtue ' 
How many, even, who profess to love the right, will sometimes 
see priniple trampled in the dust, and lie bleeding at every pore, 
and yet offer no hand of relief, no arm of defence, no voice of 
expostulation and reproof against the wrong-doer! How many, 
even in official stations, are more solicitous to know how thev 



THE FIRST GUN OP FREEDOM. yj 

can please the people, and conciliate their favor, than how tibey 
can instruct and improve them ! 

We want men as prompt, as firm, as valiant in defence o* the 
right and the true, as is the brave soldier on the field of battle 
He manfully meets the enemy face to face, brings to the conflie 
all his energies, and when he retreats, if retreat he must, befor 
superior skill or force, he carries with him the respect and tht 
admiration of both friends and foes. Who has not admired the 
personal courage, the independent spirit, and the resolute firm- 
ness of Napoleon's distinguished marshal, who commanded the 
rear guard of the grand army on its memorable retreat from 
Russia ? Having exhibited prodigies of valor, and endured hard- 
ships almost unparalleled in the annals of war, he reached at 
length the River Niemen, which forms the boundary of the Rus- 
sian territory. Here his soldiers all deserted ; but by extraordi- 
nary exertions he succeeded in rallying thirty men, with whom, 
for a time, he kept the enemy at bay ; and when this small party 
abandoned the cause as desperate, he fought the enemy single 
handed. Slowly retreating through the streets of Wilna, witl 
his face to the foe, he crossed the bridge over the Niemen, and 
was the last of the army that left the Russian territory. 

Proceeding to the first town where food and rest could be 
obtained, he fell in with an officer of rank, an old companion in 
arms, by whom he was not at first recognized. " Who are you ? " 
said the general. Mark his reply. " I am the rear guard of the 
grand army of France, Marshal Ney. I have fired the last mus- 
ket shot on the bridge of Kowno — I have thrown into the Niemen 
the last of our arms — and I have walked hither alone, as you 
see me, across the forest." What more could he have done ? 
And what a model is here presented for all who are engaged in 
the great moral conflict ! Let our posts of influence, high and 
lo\* be filled by men of such unyielding purpose, such determined 
perseverance in resisting the enemies of virtue and truth, and let 
our children be early taught to contend thus earnestly against 
vice, without regard to personal consequences, and who could 
despair of the republic ? 



The First Gun of Freedom.— Everett, 

On the 19th of April the all-important blow was struck — the 
blow which severed the fated chain whose every link was bolted 
by an act of parliament, whose every rivet was closed up by an 



68 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

.»rde • in council, which bound to the wake of Europe the brave 
bark of our youthful fortune, destined henceforth and forever to 
«"ide the waves alone — the blow which severed the fated chain 
was struck. The blow was struck which will be felt in its con- 
sequence to ourselves and the family of nations till the seventh 
seal is broken upon the apocalyptic volume of the history of 
empires. The consummation of four centuries was completed. 
The life-long hopes and heart-sick visions of Columbus, poorly 
fulfilled in the subjugation of the plumed tribes of a few tropical 
islands and the distant glimpse of a continent, cruelly mocked 
by the fetters placed upon his noble limbs by his own menial, 
and which he carried with him into his grave, are at length more 
than fulfilled, when the new world of his discovery put on the 
sovereign robes of her separate national existence, and joined the 
great Panathenaic procession of the nations. The wrongs of 
generations were redressed. 

The cup of humiliation drained to the dregs by the old Puritan 
confessors and non-conformist victims of oppression ; loathsome 
prisons ; blasted fortune ; lips forbidden to open in prayer ; earth 
and water denied in their pleasant native land ; the separations 
and sorrow of exile ; the sounding perils of the ocean ; the scented 
hedgerows and vocal thickets of the " old countrie " exchanged 
for the pathless wilderness ringing with the war whoop and 
gleaming with the scalping knife ; the secular insolence of colo- 
nial rule, checked by no periodical recurrence to the public will ; 
governors appointed on the other side of the globe that knew not 
Joseph ; the patronizing disdain of undelegated power ; the legal 
contumely of foreign law, wanting the first element of obligations, 
the consent of the governed expressed by his authorized repre- 
sentative ; and at length the last unutterable and burning affront 
and shame, a mercenary soldiery encamped upon the fair emi- 
nences of our cities ; ships of war with springs on their cables 
moored in front of our crowded quays ; artillery planted open- 
mouthed in our principal streets, at the doors of our houses of 
assembly, their morning and evening salvos proclaiming to the 
rising and setting sun that we are the subjects and they the 
lords, — all these phantoms of the long colonial night swept off by 
the first sharp volley on Lexington green. 

Well might Samuel Adams exclaim as he heard it, " O, what 
a glorious morning is this ! " Glorious, but as is too often the 
case with human glories, the germ and the fruit of sorrow, sanc- 
tified with tears and sealed with blood. Precious lives are to be 
sacrificed ; great trials, public and private, to be endured ; eight 
years of war are to desolate the land ; patriot armies are to march 



A PATRIOTIC KYMN 59 

with bloody feet over ice-clad fields ; a cloud of anxiety must 
hang over the prospects of one generation of the young, while 
another of the aged go down to the grave before the vision is 
fulfilled; but still glorious at home and abroad — glorious for 
America, and, strange as the word may sound, glorious for 
England. Lord Chatham rejoiced that America had resisted. 
Surely Lord Chatham never rejoiced in the shame of England ; 
he rejoiced that America had resisted, because she resisted on 
the great principles of constitutional liberty. Burke, in the early 
stages of tne contest, spoke these golden words : " We view the 
i-otablishment of the British colonies, on principles of liberty, as 
hat which is to render this kingdom venerable to future ages. 
.1 comparison of this, we regard all the victories and conquests 
.>f our warlike ancestors, or of our own times, as barbarous and 
vulgar distinctions, in which many nations, whom we look upon 
with little respect or value, have equaled if not exceeded us. 
This is the peculiar glory of England." 



A Patriotic Hymn. — Knickerbocker Magazine, 

New England mountains, Texian plains, 

Virginia slopes, Nebraska vales, 
One noble language breathes its strains 

Along the freedom of your gales ; 
One mighty heart pulsates beside 
The rolling of your every tide. 

One patriot glory spreadeth white 

Seraphic wings above your past, 
And rainbows in eternal light 

The costly blood which showered fast 
On battle fields of ancient time, 
When love of country was a crime. 

Heroic memories strike their root 
Along your every hill and shore ; 

And not a flower beneath the foot 
But bourgeons proudly from the gore 

Of noDle breasts, which calmly met 

The charging foeman's bayonet 



- 



60 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

The ecnoes of old battles roll 
In thunder down your cataracts, 

And utter startlingly the soul 

Of glorious times and deathless acts : 

The changeless sun-bow waveth there 

Your stripes along its native air. 

A deathless rush of crimson rills 

Through spectral ranks runs steeply dow? 

New England's first of battle hills, 
By Freedom's sickle fiercely mown, 

And echoes, even to our veins, 

But faintly worthy of such strains. 

The ice upon the Delaware 

Still trembles 'neath unshodden feet, 

Which over-track its chilly glare 

With life blood oozing through the sleet —> 

The footfalls of a race of men 

Whose like we shall not see again. 

The horn of Marion echoes clear 
Through Carolina's aged pines, 

Whose every dew-drop, like a tear, 
Is dashed aside by bannered vines, 

Which, faithless of the hero's fall, 

Still vibrate to his battle call. 

The vivid thought of Franklin beams 
In every lightning glare that flies 

Above our zone-traversing streams, 
Along our ocean-bounded skies, 

And bids us open reverent souls 

To truth's eternal thunder rolls. 

Mount Vernon bosoms in its sod 
That generation's noblest heart, 

Whom Greece had shrined a demi-god — 
A man without a counterpart ; 

The throbbings of that patriot breast 

Are echoed in our farthest west. 

Such heroes splendored not alone, 
But many more who nameless 3leep 



INDIVIDUAL CHARACTEK OP NATIONS. 61 

Beneath the hasty funeral stone, 

Where Nature took them to her deep, 
Kind bosom, from the reeling strife 
Of breast to breast and knife to knife. 

God help us keep the sacred trust 

Our sires bequeathed us with our breath, 

Crush treason in its native dust, 
And struggle, faithful unto death, 

With fearless soul and tireless hand, 

For liberty and fatherland. 



Individual Character of Nations, — J. c. Andkbws, 

Nations are neither accidental nor arbitrary divisions of men. 
They exist by divine appointment, and are the product of natura. 
laws as truly as families. The distinction between the various 
races of men on the earth lies deep in the constitution of human 
nature itself, and can never be rooted out. It is not the division 
of countries by any geographical lines, any physical boundaries, 
— by mountains or rivers, or capes or seas, — that divides people. 
Fill up the British Channel and make it a plain, and would that 
make an Englishman a Frenchman ? Bridge over the Danube, 
and will that change an Austrian into a Turk ? These distinc- 
tions lie too deep to be blotted out by a mere change of place 
or clime. 

They are impressed upon the whole man — upon his mind, 
his heart, his body. Nations have a peculiar character as tru- 
ly as individuals ; and language, customs, manners, institutions, 
all proclaim the power of national life. The inspired record, 
that " God divided to the nations their inheritance," clearly re- 
veals his purpose that peoples should be preserved distinct, that 
the peculiar characteristics of each might be fully developed, 
and thus all that is good and noble in humanity be brought to 
light. As in the family circle, there is manifested, in the highest 
degree, depth and disinterestedness of affection, purity and 
earnestness of love, so in the nation, we find corresponding 
strength and fervor of patriotism, the spirit of devotion and 
self-sacrifice. 

The noblest virtues which can adorn humanity are the natural 
truit of vigorous national life. Never has tnere been a nation 
:hat has distinguished itself by its lofty deeds, that has been the 



62 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

fruitful mother of great men, that has not cherished m a high 
degree the sprit of nationality. Where was this spirit ever 
more intense than among the Hebrew nation — the chosen peo- 
ple r What people was ever more strongly national than the 
Greeks, or labored more earnestly to develop the richness of 
the national mind ? And how brilliant is her history ! How full 
of illustrious names are her brief annals in the days of her pros- 
perity and pow^r ! Thus was it with Rome, and thus has it been 
with every nation that has exerted any important influence upon the 
destinies of the world. They have all labored, not to extinguish or 
suppress, but to awaken, and preserve, and strengthen a national 
spirit, and to cultivate to its highest perfection the national genius. 

" Lives there a man with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said, 
This is my own, my native land ? " 

Let men talk as they will about the attraction and beauties of 
cosmopolitanism and universal brotherhood, that man whose 
heart goes not out with peculiar strength of affection toward the 
land that gave him birth, — toward the grounds he trod in child- 
hood, the old roof tree, — who loves not to go back and revise 
the early scenes, and 

" Awaken the echoes that start 
When memory plays an old tune on the heart," — 

is devoid of the noblest sensibilities of our nature. Patriotism 
to him is a word without meaning, and love of country a senti- 
ment alien to his soul. 



A New Continent. — anon. 

The coral reefs of the Pacific Ocean have been in part meas- 
ured, and are found to be of amazing extent, and a new conti- 
nent is in process of formation. All the labor is accomplished 
by zoophytes — insects ; and if we wish to form some conception 
of their doings, we have but to remember that the coral formations 
of the Pacific occupy an area of four or five thousand miles, 
and to imagine what a picture the ocean would present were it 
suddenly drained. We should walk amid huge mounds which 
had been cased and capped with the stone these animals had se- 
creted. Prodigious cones would rise from the ground, all tower- 
ing to the same altitude, reflecting the light of the sun from their 
white summits with dazzling intensity. Here and there we should 
see a huge platform, once a large island, whose peaks as they 



THE CORAL GROVE. 63 

sank we*e clothed in coral, and then prolonged jpward untir 
they rose before us like the columns of some huge temple whici. 
had been commenced by the Anadins of an antediluvian world 
Champollion has said of the Egyptian edifices, that they seem 
to have been designed by men fifty feet high. Here, wandering 
among these strange monuments, we might fancy that beings 
one hundred yards in stature had been planting the pillars of 
some colossal city they had never lived to complete. The build- 
ers were worms, and the quarry, whence they dug their masonry, 
the crystal wave. In the event of this vast extent of coral reef 
being upheaved, where or whence will the waters of the Pacific 
recede ? Either the western shores of the American continent, 
and away to the Rocky Mountains, will be submerged, or the 
shores of opposite Asia — for innumerable ages the cradle of 
man's development and civilization — will sink into the great 
abyss ; rmd the ships of the inhabitants of this globe, when it adds 
ten thousand years to its age, will sail over and find no soundings 
where millions to-day toil in unresisting servitude, and where 
cities fr-^m gorgeous cupolas and storied palaces fling back the 
rays of tiie rising and the declining sun. 



The Coral Grove. — Pbbctval. 

Deep in the wave is a coral grove, 
Where the purple mullet and goldfish rove, 
Where the seaflower spreads its leaves of blue, 
That never are wet with falling dew, 
But in bright and changeful beauty shine, 
Far down in the green and glassy brine. 

The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift, 

And the pearl shells spangle the flinty snow ; 
From coral rocks the sea plants lift 

Their boughs where the tides and billows flow ■ 
The water is calm and still below, 

For the winds and waves are absent there, 
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow 

In the motionless fields of upper air ; 
There, with its waving blade of green, 

The seaflag streams through the silent water, 
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen 

To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter : 



64 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

There, with a light and easy motion, 

The fan coral sweeps through the clear deep s 
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean 

Are bending like corn on the upland lea 
And life, in rare and beautiful forms, 

Is sporting amid those bowers of stone, 
And is safe when the wrathful spirit of storms 

Has made the top of the waves his own ; 
And when the ship from his fury flies, 

When the myriad voices of ocean roar, 
When the wind god frowns in the murky skies, 

And demons are waiting the wreck on shore,— 
Then, far below, in the peaceful sea, 

The purple mullet and goldfish rove, 
Where the waters murmur tranquilly 

Through the bending twigs of the coral grove. 



Life. — Hebbe. 

Life bears us on like the current of a mighty river. Ou; 
boat, at first, glides down the narrow channel, through the play- 
ful murmurings of the little brook, and the windings of its grassy 
border. The trees shed their blossoms over our young head* 
tlu flowers on the brink seem to offer themselves to our hands , 
we are happy in hope, and we grasp eagerly at the beauties 
around us ; but the stream hurries us on, and still our hands are 
^mpty. 

Our course in youth and manhood is along a wider and deeper 
flood, and amid objects more striking and magnificent. We are 
animated by the moving picture of enjoyment and industry 
which passes before us ; we are excited by some short-lived suc- 
cess, or depressed and made miserable by some equally short- 
lived disappointment. But our energy and our dependence are 
both in vain. The stream bears us on, and our joys and our griefs 
are alike left behind us ; we may be shipwrecked, but we can not 
anchor ; our voyage may be hastened, but it can not be delayed ; 
whether rough or smooth, the river hastens toward its home, 
till the roaring of the ocean is in our ears, and the tossing of 
the waves is beneath our keel, and + he land lessens from our eye v. 
and the floods are lifted up around us, and we take our last leav 
of the earth and its inhabitants ; and of our farther voyage 
there is no witness but the Infinite f>n<\ Eternal. 



BEYOND THE RIVER. 



Beyond the River. — New Oblsams Cbso^a 

Time is a river deep and wide ; 

And while along its banks we stray, 
We see our loved ones o'er its tide 

Sail from our sight, away, away. 
Where are they sped — they who return 

No more to glad our longing eyes ? 
They've passed from life's contracted bourn, 

To land unseen, unknown, that lies 
Beyond the river. 

'Tis hid from view ; but we may guess 

How beautiful that realm must be ; 
For gleamings of its loveliness, 

In visions granted, oft we see. 
The very clouds, that o'er it throw 

Their veil, unraised for mortal sight, 
With gold and purple tintings glow, 

Reflected from the glorious light 
Beyond the river. 

And gentle airs, so sweet, so calm, 

Steal sometimes from that viewless spher© ; 
The mourner feels their breath of balm, 

And soothed sorrow dries the tear. 
And sometimes listening ear may gain 

Entrancing sound that hither floats — 
The echo of a distant strain 

Of harps' and voices' blended notes, 
Beyond the river. 

There are our loved ones in their rest ; 

They've crossed Time's River ; now no more 
They heed the bubbles on its breast, 

Nor feel the storms that sweep its shore. 
But there pure love can live, can last ; 

They look for us their home to share. 
When we in turn away have passed, 

What joyful greetings wait us there, 
Beyond the river 



ROSfe'S SPEAKER. 



A Valedictory Address. —Putnam. 

We thank you, friends, who have come hither, on this occa 
sion, to encourage and cheer us with your presence. We thank 
you, who have gone so far and learned so much, on your journey 
of life, that you so kindly look back and smile upon us just set- 
ting out on our pilgrimage. We thank you, who have climbed so 
high up the Hill of Science, that you condescend to pause a 
moment in your course, and bestow a cheering, animating glance 
on us, who, almost invisible in the distance, are toiling over the 
roughness of the first ascent. May you go on your way in 
peace, your path, like the sun, waxing brighter and brighter till 
the perfect day ; and may the light of your example long linger 
in blessings on those of us who shall survive to take your places 
in the broad and busy world. 

We thank you, respected instructors, for your paternal care, 
your faithful counsels, and affectionate instructions. You have 
opened before us those ways of wisdom which are full of pleas- 
antness and peace. You have warned us of danger, when dan- 
gers beset our path ; you have removed obstacles, when obstacles 
impeded our progress ; you have corrected us when in error, and 
cheered us when discouraged. You have told us of the bright 
rewards of knowledge and virtue, and of the fearful recompense 
of ignorance and vice. In the name of my companions, I thank 
you — warmly, sincerely thank you for it all. Our lips can not 
express the gratitude that glows within our hearts ; but we will 
endeavor, with the blessing of Heaven, to testify it in our future 
lives, by dedicating all that we are, and all that we may attain, 
to the promotion of virtue and the good of mankind. 

And now, beloved companions, I turn to you. Long and 
happy has been our connection as members of this school : 
but with this day it must close forever. No longer shall we sit 
in these seats to listen to the voice that wooes us to be wise ; no 
more shall we sport together on the noisy green, or wander in 
the silent grove. Other scenes, other society, other pursuits 
await us. We must part ; but parting shall only draw closer 
the ties that bind us. The setting sun and the evening star, 
which have so often witnessed our social intimacies and joys, 
shall still remind us of the scenes that are past. While we live 
on the earth may we cherish a grateful remembrance of each 
other; and O, in heaven may our friendship be purified and 
perpetuated. And now to old and young, to patrons and friends, 
to instructors and each other, we tender our reluctant and 
affectionate fareweU ' 



MERCY. — COLLEGIATE EDUCATION. 67 

Mercy. — Shabspbabb. 

The quality of mercy is not strained ; 
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath : it is twice blessed ; 
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes : 
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown : 
His scepter shows the force of temporafpower, 
The attribute to awe and majesty, 
Wherein doth sit the fear and dread of kings : 
But mercy is above the sceptered sway ; 
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, 
It is an attribute of God himself; 
And earthly power doth then show likest God's, 
When mercy seasons justice ; therefore, Jew, 
Though justice be thy plea, consider this — 
That in the course of justice none of us 
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy ; 
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
The deeds of mercy : I have spoke thus much 
^o mitigate the justice of thy plea. 



Collegiate Education. — c. Rosbltob, 

The question has been sneeringly asked, Of what practical 
benefit is the knowledge of Greek and Latin, and the higher 
branches of mathematics, to those who do not intend to enter the 
learned professions? Persons who propound such questions 
seem to have lost sight of the fact, that the great and paramount 
object of education is, the development and strengthening of the 
powers of the mind, and that that important end can only be 
attained by exercising and disciplining the mental faculties. 
Now, every one who has bestowed the least consideration on che 
subject must know that nothing is better calculated to fix the 
attention, and to induce thought and reflection, than the study 
of the dead languages and the mathematics. Indeed, it is obvi- 
ous that not one step can be taken in these studies without 
bringing nearly all the mental powers into active operation. It 
is therefore manifest, that, without insisting, for the present, at 
all on the manifold other advantages resulting from a proficiency 
in classic literature, and the mathematical and natural sciences 



69 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

the riudy of these branches of knowledge is, at any rate, of in- 
calculable benefit as the means of accomplishing the great end 
of education — the improvement of the mind. 

It is said that Wisdom does not speak to her followers in Latin, 
Greek, and Hebrew only, but that she teaches her sublime les- 
sons in the pages of Shakspeare, Milton, Jeremy Taylor, and a 
brilliant constellation of other authors, who have all written in 
our own nervous vernacular. This is true. But let me ask, What 
class of readers nourish their minds with the strong, healthy, 
and invigorating food set before them by these writers ? Cer- 
tainly not those whose taste has been cloyed, and whose powers 
of digestion have been enfeebled, if not entirely destroyed, by 
feeding on the pap and sweetmeats of most of the popular 
authors of the day. Not one reader in a thousand who pores 
with delight over the glittering inanities of Bulwer, or the vapid 
sentimentalities of James, will ever venture to read a hundred 
lines of the Paradise Lost, or a single scene of Hamlet. There is 
a craving and insatiable appetite for novelty, which is constantly 
increased by the trash it feeds on. How can this mental mal- 
ady be cured, unless it be by forming the taste and judgment of 
ine youthful student by a careful study and contemplation of 
the great models of antiquity ? In them alone do we find that 
wonderful artistic perfection which the moderns have attempted 
to imitate in vain. Homer as a poet, Demosthenes as an orator, 
and Thucydides as an historian, still stand, each in his own 
department, in solitary grandeur, unrivaled and unapproachable. 
" The poems of Homer," says Dr. Johnson, " we yet know not 
to transcend the common limits of human intelligence, but by 
remarking that nation after nation, and century after century, 
has been able to do little more than transpose his incidents, new 
name his characters, and paraphrase his sentiments. 1 ' 

Reference is frequently made, by those who take the opposite 
view of this subject, to instances of what are called self-made 
men, for the purpose of proving that a liberal education is not 
an essential requisite for the attainment of intellectual distinc- 
tion. We are told that the Bard of Avon " had little Latin, and 
less Greek ; " that Robert Burns was a peasant ; that Pope was 
the best Greek scholar of his age, and has translated the sublime 
poetry of Homer into English, with all the vigor and freshness 
of the original ; yet he never was inside of a college. All this is 
true ; and other examples might be added to the list. But, allow 
me to ask, what does this prove against the correctness of the 
propositions which we have been endeavoring to establish ? 
There arc exceptions to all general rules, and one of the most 



THE LOST SHIP. 6f 

familiar maxims of logic, is, that the exception proves the rule 
Now that we meet occasionally with a mind so happil organ 
ized, and endowed with such a degree of energy and wi I, as to 
grapple successfully with the disadvantages of a neglected or 
stinted education, and " climb the steep where Fame's proud 
emple shines afar," does surely not prove any thing agains ilw> 
enefits and necessity of collegiate instruction and disci pi i i\ 
Besides, who ?nn tell, except those that have gone through the 
ordeal, by what privation, labor, and application such persons 
have been enabled to travel over the rugged path9 to knowledge, 
and 1 hereby provide something like a substitute for early and 
regular training 5 And how many have ever been successful in 
the attempt ? Not one in ten thousand. 



TJie Lost Ship. — Miss Ma.by Ann l.*«. 

The moon's fair beams, with silver hue, 
Had faintly tinged the waters blue, 
When o'er the ocean, lone and vast, 
A stately ship came gliding past. 
Glad hearts she bore above the wave, 
That soon might be each sailor's grave ; 
But nought of danger, death, or wrecK 
Thought the gay crowd that thronged her deck. 

In her were gathered ladies fair, 
And aged men with silver hair, 
Youth in whose veins the blood beat high, 
And merry childhood's laughing eye. 
The pilgrim to his home she bore, 
The wanderer to his native shore. 
The hopes of all were fair and bright, 
The hearts of all beat gay and light. 

And when at length they sank to rest, 
Bright dreams of home their pillows blessed. 
But other scene the morning brings ; 
High o'er the prow the dark wave springs ; 
The threatening winds blow loud and high, 
As through the darkening storm ihoy fly. 
All day they fled before the bias- ; 
Their rich freight to the waves t.iey cart, 



ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

(rone from each lip the smile and jest, 
The lightsome spirit from each breast 

Again Night her black curtain drew 

Above the ocean dark ; 
Loud and more loud the tempest grew 

Around the gallant bark. 
Her sails are rent by the fierce blast, 
The lightning's flame hath singed her mast, 
The billows dash against her prow : 
No power on earth can save her now. 

His eye, aione, who raised that gloom.. 
Saw the sad ve&sei meet her dooir.. 
But when the morning's golden light 
Had chased the shadows of the night, 
All calm and quiet smiled the scene 
Wnere late that sinking ship had been 
And lightly danced the treacherous wave 
Above the lovely and the brave. 



Tell me, ye Winged Winds. — Charles Maxkay. 

Tell me, ye winged winds, 

That round my pathway roar, 
Do you not know some spot 

Where mortals weep no more i 
Some lone and pleasant dell, 

Some valley in the West, 
Where, free from toil and pain, 

The weary soul may rest ? 
The loud wind softened to a whisper low, 
And sighed for pity as it answered, " No ' 

Tell me, thou mighty deep, 

Whose billows round me play, 
Know'st thou some favored spot, 

Some island far away, 
Where weary man may find 

The bliss for which he sighs, 
\Vr>«re sorrow never lives 

.\rui friendship never dies ? 



EFEEC1S OF IGNORANCE AMONG TliE MASSES 7] 

The loud waves, rolling in perpetual flow, 
Stopped for a while, and sighed to answer, " No . 

And thou, serenest moon, 

That with such holy face 
Dost look upon the earth, 

Asleep in night's embrace, 
Tell me, in all thy round 

Hast thou not seen some spo» 
Where miserable man 

Might find a happier lot ? 
Behind a cloud the moon withdrew in w >e, 
And a voice sweet, but sad, responded, u No ! v 

Tell me, my secret soul, 

O, tell me, Hope and Faith, 
Is there no resting-place 

From sorrow, sin, and death ? 
Is there no happy spot, 

Where mortals may be blessed, 
Where grief may find a balm, 
And weariness a rest ? 
Faith, Hope, and Love — best boons to mortals given, 
Waved their bright wings, and whispered, u Yes, in heaven f * 



Effects of Ignorance among the Masses. 

C. Roselius, 

What are the amusements of the ignorant ? They must 
necessarily consist, and be limited, in a great measure, to the 
gratification of the sensual appetites, the inevitable consequences 
of an abuse of which are a debilitated body and a depraved heart. 
Nearly all the avenues to the higher enjoyments of the soul 
are closed up to the ignorant , they look with a vacant stare at 
the wonderful and beautiful works of an all-wise Creator ; their 
eyes cannot understanding^ behold the admirable harmony of 
nature ; nay, the greatest of all blessings vouchsafed to man — 
the inestimable comforts and consolations of religion — can not be 
enjoyed and appreciated by them to the same extent as those 
whose mental faculties and moral perceptions have been awa- 
kened and sharpened by education and religious training. And 
yet we hear intelligent persons talk of the danger of over-edu 



72 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

eating the people. Let me ask, What would become of our lib- 
erty, our aJfli'^.ble system of government, and our glorious 
Union, if it was not for the education and intelligence of the 
people ? Destroy these, and the beautiful fabric will crumble 
into dust, and. like " an insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a 
rack behind." Look at the pages of history ; and by whose in- 
strumentality has human freedom been invariably crushed, and 
despotism and oppression established in its place ? By the igno- 
rant masses of the people, led on by designing and unscrupulous 
demagogues. 

Take, as an illustration of this position, the last French revolu- 
tion, or, as it is called, the coup (Petat * of Louis Napoleon Bona- 
parte. Here we seo the president of a republic, elected by his 
fellow-citizens, sworn to support that constitution from which 
alone he derived his power, deliberately commit perjury, murder, 
bind treason, and thereby constitute himself the master of the 
very people whose servant he had been ; and the stupid populace 
shout, and assist in riveting the chains by which they are en- 
slaved. Would any president of the United States, however 
daring and ambitious he might be, ever dream of such an act of 
usurpation, even if he had an army of five hundred thousand 
soldiers at his command ? Certainly not ; for he would know 
that the majority of the people who had elevated him to the high- 
est office in their gift are too well educated and too intelligent to 
be made tools of in his hands for the destruction of their own 
freedom ; that, understanding and appreciating their liberty, the 
first act of usurpation would be visited by the most condign pun- 
ishment, not by the assassin's dagger, but by the awful decree 
of the violated majesty of the law. 



A Plea for the Union . — o. P. Baldwin , 

I know, fellow-citizens, that the hour is dark ; that sectional 

passions are aroused ; and that the future seems pregnant with 

ilisastrous results. But let us not even permit ourselves to dream 

>f such an event as the dissolution of the Union. Fraternal love, 

' rbearance, reason can save it, when even wisdom and elo- 

-"nce would be of no avail. Let the eyes of each section be 

longer blind to the virtues and open to the faults of others. 

Frenchman may rise against his government, the Hungari- 

nay seek 10 tnrow off the thralldom of Austria, the Polander 

* Pronounced coo-da-tafi. 



A PLEA FOll THE UNION. 7tf 

may struggle to regain his nationality ; but if we permit this 
Union to perish until every constitutional and fraternal remedy 
has been - exhausted, we shall present the first example in the 
world's history of a people who were rebels against themselves ; 
who were satiated with the sweets of liberty, sick of peace, and 
wearied with prosperity. Never have a people been blessed 
with such blessings as we have enjoyed under this Union ; never 
have a people been cursed with such curses as will follow its 
dissolution. Surely it can not be that all our endowments of civil 
and religious liberty, of peace and plenty, are to be sacrificed by 
the madness of a few men who make war alike upon the Bible 
and the constitution, and who would involve in the same ruin 
the shrine of religion and the ark of liberty. 

Surely it cannot be that, as Europe is slowly advancing in na- 
tional freedom by the light of our example, we should with our 
own hands extinguish the beacon fire which guides a world on 
its weary way. Did your footsteps ever wander in a foreign 
land ? Doubtless many a grand and impressive object you there 
beheld hallowed by the moss of antiquity, and wreathed with a 
thousand beautiful associations. Beneath the solemn shades of 
Westminster Abbey, on the immortal field of Waterloo, at the 
foot of St. Peter's massive pile, upon the plains of Marathon, 
you have bowed your head in veneration of genius, learning, 
piety, and valor. You have beheld many a gorgeous spectacle 
of wealth and greatness, of power and pomp ; but tell me, among 
them all, did you ever behold a sight that so stirred the deep 
foundations of your heart, and sent the blood boiling with proud 
emotion through every vein, as when, upon some lonely sea, you 
met one of your national vessels, the stars and stripes of your 
country flowing freely out over the frowning battery and the 
mountain wave ? 

And shall the time ever arrive when you must travel through the 
world and meet no more that flag ? when neither on sea nor shore 
shall its " meteor glories " fall upon the wanderer's eye ? when 
the American shall pass through the world worse than an orphan 
— a man without a country ? Must I ever be condemned to feel 
that the national structure in which I dwell is not the one which 
was built by the apostles of American freedom, and cemented 
by the blood of its martyrs ? not the one of which Washington 
laid the corner stone, and of which Jefferson and Madison were 
among the chief architects ? not the one which was Jlumed by the 
wisdom of a Marshall, and echoed the thunder of u Henry's elo- 
quence ? not the first temple which stood upon the Mount Zion of 
&ur American Israel, its magnificent altar gleaming through clo ids 



*i '4 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

of patriotic incense and the heaven-enkindled air of freedom 
burning forever upon its shrine ? No, not this temple, but some 
humbler edifice, without an altar or a priest, like thai in whicn 
the disconsolate Jew mourns his lost Jerusalem, and hanging his 
harp upon the willow, exclaims, " How can I sing the Lord's song 
in a strange land " ? And must I not only give up my portion 
in the flag and history of my country, but must I yield my inter- 
ests in any of the consecrated spots of this loved republic ; 
Must I stand on Bunker Hill and Lexington, and be known as a 
foreigner ? Must the man of the north press the sod of Mount 
Vernon, and mournfully exclaim, " This is no longer my coun- 
try" ? Must the world relinquish its only rallying ground of 
free principles ? 

A voice rises from the oppressed millions of Europe — Take 
not away from us our only city of refuge ! From dungeon 
vaults, and from the ashes of holy martyrs, comes a cry — De- 
stroy not the home of religious liberty ! From the ruins of an- 
cient republics melancholy notes of warning float on every breeze. 
From the battlements of heaven, the spirits of our fathers bend in 
solicitude, and mourn — if grief can enter heaven — that they 
bave do human tongue to arrest our mad career. 



My Lord Tomnoddy.— London Diogenes. 

My Lord Tomnoddy's the son of an earl ; 
His hair is straight, but his whiskers curl ; 
His lordship's forehead is far from wide, 
But there's plenty of room for the brains inside. 
He writes his name with indifferent ease ; 
He is rather uncertain about the " d's ; " 
But what does it matter, if two, or one, 
To the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son ? 

My Lord Tomnoddy to college went ; 
Much time he lost, much money he spent ; 
Rules, and windows, and heads he broke ; 
Authorities winked — young men will joke: 
He never peeped inside of a book ; 
In two years' time a degree he took ; 
\nd the newspapers vaunted the honors won 
By the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son 



MILITARY EDUCATION IN CIVIL INSTITUTIONS «& 

My Lord Tomnoddy must settle down , 
There's a vacant seat in the family town ; 
(It's time he should sow his eccentric oats ;) 
He hasn't the wit to apply for votes , 
He can not e'en learn his election speech ; 
Three phrases he speaks — a mistake in each ! 
And then breaks down ; but the borough is won 
For the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son. 

My Lord Tomnoddy prefers the Guards, 

(The House is a bore,) so it's on the cards ! 

My lord is a cornet at twenty-three, 

A major at twenty-six is he — 

He never drew sword, except on drill ; 

The tricks of parade he has learned but ill : 

A lieutenant colonel at thirty-one 

Is the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son. 

My Lord Tomnoddy is thirty-four ; 
The earl can last but a few years more. 
My lord in the peers will take his place ; 
Her majesty's councils his words will grace. 
Office he'll hold, and patronage sway ; 
Fortunes and lives he will vote away; 
And what are his qualifications ? One — 
He's the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son. 



Military Education in Civil Institutions. 

C. G. Forshey, Pres. of Texas Military Institute, 

The citizen soldier is the guardian of the republic. Freemen 
need no other standing army. While monarchies are sustained 
by hireling soldiers, whose lives are passed in idleness or in 
blood, the citizen soldier devotes his years to industry and cul 
ture, to domestic happiness, and to public enterprise. Public 
education should therefore be conducted under military dis- 
cipline. Youth will acquire, with pleasure and promptness, 
what manhood can scarcely learn at all. And while youthful 
fervor and zest are available, let the citizen soldier have h ; s 
training. 

No one can fail to approve the influence of military training 



76 KOSS'S S^EAKEK. 

Lpoii nanners and movements. There u something in the mere 
salutaaon of the military man or youth that every one who wit- 
nesses approves. His bearing is open, frank, and manly ; his 
movement dignified and graceful. Bashfulness and diffidence 
never betray awkwardness ; for a well-drilled soldier can not be 
awkward, however much embarrassed and confused. Give us 
military discipline, then, for the education of youth, if it have no 
furthei object than to aid in developing manliness of character. 
But it effects, with certainty, what is so often neglected — the 
development of the physical powers in harmony with the in- 
tellectual. 

How often have we seen, from the neglect of physical train- 
ing, the student, who has mastered knowledge by years of study 
and splendid intellectual achievement, just as he is ready to enter 
upon the business of life, and apply his talents and learning to 
useful purposes, find his physical frame exhausted, and after a 
few vain struggles to restore the balance, — too long and fatally 
neglected, — bow down to the relentless destroyer, Death. His- 
tory is full of examples. We all have, at times, been called 
upon to grieve the untimely loss of such. But tears come too 
late, alas ! for those that are gone. Let us provide a better edu- 
cation for those who remain. 

And, on the other hand, contemplate the mind that has lain 
dormant in a body trained to physical force and endurance till 
the will and the passions have grown strong and unmanagea- 
ble, till the animal instincts have spread their branches, in dark 
and poisonous umbrage, all over the character ; till the strong 
roots and vines of prejudice and superstition have lashed fast the 
slumbering soul, and blight and mildew have dimmed and 
blurred its capacities to spring up and see the light. In spite of 
all his physical prowess, our very Hercules is but an animal, the 
compeer of horses and beasts of burden ; and at highest, 
gladiator for the Roman arena, the antagonist of tigers, the con- 
queror of a lion in a single combat. 

No training could redeem such a soul ; no fascinations of art 
or science, no allurements of intellectual bliss, or flowers of 
poesy, or harmonies of nature, could reclaim it to a life of men- 
tal joys — the only joys, outside religion, worthy the attention 
of a human mind. I shall not say that religion can not reach it ; 
for religion has the capacity to grapple with our instincts. It 
resides in and appertains to the department of the sentiments, in 
human character ; and God, it seems, for purposes wiser than 
man can deem, adapted it to reach the humblest and the most 
degraded character. It goes where education, properly speak- 



NO GEOGRAPHICAL PARTY. T) 

mg, can not reach, and awakens and illumines with a hope of 
heaven the soul to which intellectual education has no possible 
access. 

Equally repulsive are these two pictures ; and to the educator 
of true manhood, freedom-loving and freedom-sustaining man- 
hood, alike impracticable and irreclaimable. Can we not avoid 
these extremes ? must we not ? Let us begin in youth. 

Let us begin to educate with a proper balance of mental and 
physical discipline Not merely to instill the grammars, geogra- 
phies, and arithmetics of language, though these have their proper 
place ; not merely to teach a development of limb and muscle in 
the physical system — and this itself is very unusual in schools ; 
but let us commence, from ten or twelve years old, to treat the 
mind with ideas of manly republican responsibility, to fill it with 
a love of liberty and independence, with a knowledge of our 
country's history and its institutions, to impress upon it an ap- 
preciation of the high duties that await the rising man. And, 
moreover, that the mind may have an expansion and liberality 
of thought, and true apprehension of the great laws of nature, 
let it be taught, from this moment forward, that nature works by 
great, uniform, harmonious laws, and that man may take for his 
model those laws, when he reasons or legislates for human 
rights. Besides the ordinary course of letters, which are essen- 
tial to respectability and usefulness, let these things be taught 
from boyhood, and the mind will have a manly and republican 
culture. 



No Geographical Party. 

[From the letter of Rufus Choate to the Whigs of Boston, by whom he fas 
elected a delegate to the Whig State Convention, 

We elect presidents, governors, and members of Congress, 
not to deliver written lectures to assenting audiences of ladies 
and gt itlemen, to kindle the inflammable and exasperate the 
angry, but to perform the duties of practical statesmanship, in 
the most complicated and delicate political system, and the hard- 
est to administer in the world. Let us, at least, then know 
their politics. 

Kept totally in the dark about these, we do know that this 
party of fusion is, in the truest of all senses, and the worst of all 
senses, a geographical party. What argument against it can we 
add to this ? Such a party, like war, is to be made wheu i> vg 



78 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

necessary. If it is not necessary, it is, like war too, a tremsndouf 
and uncompensated evil. When it shall have become necessary, 
the eternal separation will have begun. That time, that end, is 
not yet. Let us not hasten, and not anticipate it, by so rash an 
innovation as this. 

Parties in this country heretofore have helped, not delayed, the 
slow and difficult growth of a consummated nationality. Our 
discussions have been sharp ; the contests for honor and power 
keen ; the disputes about principles and measures hot and pro- 
longed. But it was in our country's majestic presence that we 
contended. It was from her hand that we solicited the prize. 
Whoever lost or won, we loved her better. Our allies were 
eyery where. There were no Alleghanies nor Mississippi Rivers 
in our politics. 

Such was the felicity of our condition, that the very dissen- 
sions which rent small republics in twain welded and compacted 
the vast fabric of our own. Does he who would substitute for 
this form of conducting our civil differences a geographical party, 
completely understand his own work ? Does he consider how 
vast an educational instrumentality the party life and influence 
compose ? Does he forget how the public opinion of a people is 
created, and that when created it determines their history ? All 
party organization tends towards faction. This is its evil. But 
it is inseparable from free government. To choose his political 
connection aright is the most delicate and difficult duty of the 
citizen. We have made our choice, and we abide by it. We 
join ourselves to no party that does not carry the flag and keep 
step to the music of the Union. 



Shall our Laurels wither? — A. P. Harcourt, 

From France and England America can expect nothing. 
Should our internal commotions and sectional animosities once 
carry our nation to the verge of disunion and certain destruction, 
we can look for no conciliatory interference on the part of these 
crafty powers. We are now already disunited in sentiment ; and 
the harmony and brotherly feeling, that were wont to prevail, no 
longer manifest themselves, as of yore, in a love of our great and 
flourishing republic — in a determination to stand by the Union 
and our star-lit banner, when invaded and attacked by traitors 
from within and foes from without ; our hearts have grown cold, 
a cloud is on our brow, and we are not prepared for the corning 
storm. 



THE SONG OF STEAM. 79 

Already has the war whoop been raised by the crowned heads 
of Europe, and the cry has gone forth, that the great luminary 
of the western world is on the wane ; that he* light in the 
political heavens is beginning to grow dim; that soon she will 
sink into eternal gloom, never, never to rise again. Shall it be ? 
Shall the eagle be stopped in his lofty flight? Proud bird ! shall 
they tear from thee thy plumage ? Shall they pluck from thee 
that quill that is to record on the scroll of time great America's 
fall r Shall our laurels wither ? Forbid it, Almighty God ! 

Forbid that the flag of a Warren, the martyr, — of a Wash- 
ington, the hero, the sage, the patriot, — that the flag which first 
floated to the breeze from the heights of Bunker's Hill, and 
which afterward streamed aloft from over Independence Hall, 
and which now waves over twenty millions of people, the lights 
of the habitable globe, — forbid that it should ever be lowered to 
a foreign foe ; but if it must be lowered, if it must be struck, 
great God forbid that it should be by a parricidal hand ; rather 
let it be by some Philip — ay, a Xerxes with his million of men ; 
but ere, then, it shall fall, Americans ! — yes, you Kentuckians ! — 
let us gather around the venerable staff, and as each raises Lis 
right hand to heaven, and clasps the flowing folds with his left, le< 
us swear our laurels shall never wither. 



The Song' of Steam. — American Organ. 

Harness me down with your iron bands ; 

Be sure of your curb and rein ; 
For I scorn the power of your puny hands, 

As the tempest scorns a chain. 
How I laughed, as I lay concealed from sight 

For many a countless hour, 
At the childish boast of human might, 

And the pride of human power ! 

When I saw an army upon the land, 

A navy upon the seas, 
Creeping along, a snail-like band, 

Or waiting the wayward breeze ; 
When I marked the peasant faintly reel 

With the toil which he daily bore, 
As he feebly turned the tardy wheel, 

Or tugged at the weary oar ; — 



gO ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

When I measured the panting courser's speed, 

The flight of the courier dove, 
As they bore the law a king decreed, 

Or the lines of impatient love, — 
I could not but think how the world would feel, 

As these were outstripped afar, 
When I should be bound to the rushing keel, 

Or chained to the flying car. 

Ha, ha, ha ! they found me at last ; 

They invited me forth at length ; 
And I rushed to my throne with a thunder blast, 

And laughed in my iron strength. 
O, then ye saw a wondrous change 

On the earth and the ocean wide, 
Where now my fiery armies range, 

Nor wait for wind or tide. 

Hurrah ! hurrah ! the waters o'er, 

The mountains steep decline ; 
Time, space, have yielded to my power ; 

The world, the world is mine ; 
The rivers the sun hath earliest blessed, 

Or those where his beams decline ; 
The giant streams of the queenly west, 

Or the orient floods divine. 

The ocean pales, where'er I sweep, 

To hear my strength rejoice, 
And the monsters of the briny deep 

Cower, trembling, at my voice. 
[ carry the wealth and the lord of the earth, 

The thoughts of his godlike mind ; 
The wind lags after my flying breath, 

The lightning is left behind. 

In the darksome depths of the fathomless mine 

My tireless arm doth play, 
Where the rocks never saw the sun decline, 

Or the dawn of the glorious day. 
I '>ring earth's glittering jewels up 

From the hidden cave below, 
And T make the fountain's granite cup 

With a crystal gush o'er flow. 



INDEPENDENCE MONUMENT. &] 

I blow the bellows, I forge the steel, 

In all the shops of trade ; 
I hammer the ore and turn the wheel, 

Where my arms of strength are made ; 
1 manage the furnace, the mill, the mint ; 

I carry, I spin, I weave ; 
And all my doings I put into print, 

On every morn and eve. 

Pve no muscle to weary, no breast to decay, 

No bone to be " laid on the shelf," 
And soon 1 intend you may " go and play, 1 ' 

While I manage this world myself. 
But harness me down with your iron bands ; 

Be sure of your curb and rein ; 
For I scorn the strength of your puny hands, 

As the tempest scorns a chain. 



Independence Monument. —Kenneth Rayner. 

[On the bill to " aid in the erection of a monument commemorative of 
the declaration of American independence," in the Senate of North 
Carolina, 

The erection of this monument in Independence Square will 
strengthen and confirm in the minds of our people the consecra- 
tion of a spot already hallowed in the hearts and affections of 
every lover of liberty in this land. Every one of those moral 
and intellectual giants, who there presided over our nation's 
birth, is gone to the spirit land. But their names and their mem- 
ories live, and as time rolls on, the mythic legends of a distant 
future will associate their self-sacrificing achievements, their 
intellectual efforts, and their crowning triumph, with the idea of 
inspiration and of aid from on high. The golden fruits of that 
bountiful harvest, the seeds of which were sown by their hands, 
we are now reaping. The extension of our country's limits ; the 
rapid progress of our civilization, our freedom, our religion, and 
our laws ; the triumphs of our arms ; the advancement of our 
commerce ; our wonderful improvements in literature, in arts, 
and in industrial enterprise ; in fact, the teeming wealth, and 
luxury, and comfort of our boundless resources, and the numher- 
'«ss blessings with which kind Heaven has favored us, — for the 



9*2 BOSSS SPEAKER. 

germ and development of all these revolutionary benefactors, 
who appealed to Heaven for the rectitude of their intentions, 
uttered the " declaration," Let this nation be free ; and lo, it was 
free ! Sir, can we, their posterity, feel gratitude warm enough 
to requite the boon they bequeathed us ? Can we speak in lan- 
guage glowing enough to duly sound their praise ? Can we build 
monuments high enough to tell the story of their deeds? 

But what we can do let us do. Let us, in conjunction with our 
sister states of the Old Thirteen, — whose classic soil was bedewed 
with the blood of the martyrs of freedom, and in whose soil now 
rest their nallowed remains, — let us erect this monument on the 
site of our political Bethlehem, from whence were first heralded 
the glad tidings of our national salvation, from whence first 
went forth the warning to tyrants, and the assurance to the op- 
pressed of the nations, that liberty was man's right, and to assert 
it was his duty. There let it stand till time shall be no more. 
In its massive strength, let it be emblematic of the hardy vigor 
and unterrified determination of those whose names may be 
inscribed on its shaft. Let its peerless beauty reflect the purity 
of their motives and the devotion of their hearts. Let its heaven- 
ward pointed summit represent the lofty aspirations of their 
souls, and suggest to the beholder the place of their reward and 
final rest. 



The Same, conch tied. 



The moral influence of such a structure, reared by the joint 
and voluntary contributions of the Old Thirteen, can not fail to 
exercise a moral influence potent for good, after we shall be no 
more. It will symbolize the union of these states, will present a 
physical illustration of our national motto, " E Pluribus Unum," 
and stand as a warning to disunionists and agitators, that the fab- 
ric of our Union, elaborated from the wisdom of revolutionary 
sages, and cemented by the blood of revolutionary heroes, shah 
never fall a victim to their parricidal hands. It will be an object 
of pilgrimage for the lovers of liberty and union in our country 
through all future time, keeping alive in the hearts of our people 
the glorious associations of our past history, and fostering the 
impulses of patriotism, when they shall begin to wane. It will 
tend to inspire with patriotic sentiments the youth of our country ; 
lo admonish them of the price at which our national freedom was 
purchased ; to excite an emulation in deeds of high and noblo 



THL WILL. 53 

daring, and at the same time to sanctify the!; ambition : and to 
teach them the glorious rewards which a grateful posterity h 
w iiing to bestow upon deeds of disinterested self-sacrifice and 
devotion by the benefactors of their country. 

Sir, my humble task is done. I appeal to this Senate, as the 
representatives and guardians of North Carolina's pride, her honor 
and her patriotism, not to let our state be the last to concur in 
this praiseworthy movement. Above all, let it never be said of 
us, that we are so deficient in patriotic pride, so insensible to the 
memory of the past, as to refuse to concur in this 'ear.-stirring 
design. What must be the feeling of every true-hearted son of 
the old North State, who may in the future visit Philadelphia, and 
from curiosity, if from no higher impulse, he shall visit this mon- 
ument ; he there sees the names of every other of the old thirteen 
states inscribed in letters of glory on its sides, with the names 
of those who echoed their appeal to the God of battle, in the 
immortal Declaration of Independence ; but he shall search in 
vain for the name of this state, who sent her Nashes and Cas 
wells, her Davies and Polks, tier Grahams and Davidsons, to lead 
the hosts of freedom in our struggles for independence — and 
the names of Hooper, Hughes, and Penn, who spoke her senti- 
ments in the days of peril, will fail to greet his vision. God 
forbid such a reproach as this should rest on the name of that 
state which I love so well. 



The Will — A Dialogue.— a»on. 

Character*. — Swipes, a brewer , Cubbie, a saddler ; Fbank Millington, 
and 'Squire Dbawl. 

Swipes. A sober occasion, this, brother Currie. Who would 
have thought the old lady was so near her end ? 

Currie. Ah, we must all die, brother Swipes ; and ihose who 
live longest outlive the most. 

Swipes. True, true ; but since we must die and leave nur 
earthly possessions, it is well that the law takes such good care 
of us. Had the old lady her senses when she departed ? 

Cur. Perfectly, perfectly. 'Squire Drawl told me she read 
every word of the will aloud, and never cigned her name betfer. 

Swipes. Had you any hint from the 'Squire, what disposMor 
«he made of her property ? 

Cur. Not a whisper ; the 'Squire is as close as an under 



84 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

ground tomb : but one of the witnesses hinted to me that she had 
3ut off her graceless nephew Frank without a shilling. 

Swipes. Has she, good soul, — has she ? You know I come 
in, then, in right of my wife. 

Cur. And I in my own right ; and this is no doubt the reason 
why we have been called to hear the reading of the will. 'Squire 
Drawl knows how things should be done, though he is as air-tight 
ps one of your beer barrels. But here comes the young repro- 
bate. He must be present, as a matter of course, you know 
(Enter Frank Millington.) Your servant, young gentleman. 
So your benefactress has left you, at last. 

Swipes. It is a painful thing to part with old and good friends, 
Mr. Millington. 

Frank. It is so, sir ; but I could bear her loss better, had I 
not so often been ungrateful for her kindness. She was my only 
friend, and I knew not her value. 

Cur. It is too late to repent, Master Millington. You will 
now have a chance to earn your own bread. 

Swipes. Ay, ay, by the sweat of your brow, as better people 
are obliged to. You would make a fine brewer's boy, if you 
were not too old. 

Cur. Ay, or a saddler's lackey, if held with a tight rein. 

Frank. Gentlemen, your remarks imply that my aunt has 
treated me as 1 deserved. I am above your insults, and only 
hope you will bear your fortune as modestly as I shall mine sub- 
missively. I shall retire. (Going, he meets 'Squire Drawl.) 

'Squire. Stop, stop, young man. We must have your pres- 
ence. Good morning, gentlemen ; you are early on the ground. 

Cur. I hope the 'Squire is well to-day. 

'Squire. Pretty comfortable, for an invalid. 

Swipes. I trust the damp air has not affected your lungs again. 

'Squire. No, I believe not. But since the heirs at law are 
all convened, I shall now proceed to open the last will and testa- 
ment of your deceased relative, according to law. 

Swipes. ( While the 'Squire is breaking the seal.) It is a try- 
ing; thing to leave all one's possessions, 'Squire, in this manner. 

Cur. It really makes me feel melancholy, when I look round 
and see every thing but the venerable owner of these goods. 
Well did the Preacher say, " All is vanity." 

'Squire. Please to be seated, gentlemen. (He puts on his 
spectacles, and begins to read slowly.) "Imprimis: whereas my 
nephew, Francis Millington, by his disobedience and ungrateful 
conduct, has shown himself unworthy of my bounty, and inca- 
pable of managing my large estate, I do hereby give and b£ 



THE WILL. 85 

queath all my houses, farms, stocks, bonds, moneys, and proper- 
ty, both personal and real, to my dear cousins, Samuel Swipes, 
of Malt Street, brewer, and Christopher Currie, of Fly Courts 
saddler." (The 'Squire takes off his spectacles, to wipe them.) 

Swipes. Generous creature ! Kind soul ! I always loved 
her. 

Cur. She was good, she was kind ; and, brother Swipes, 
when we divide, I think I'll take the mansion house. 

Swipes. Not so fast, if you please, Mr. Currie. My wife 
has long had her eye upon that, and must have it. 

Cur. There will be two words to that bargain, Mr. Swipes. 
And, besides, I ought to have the first choice. Did I not lend 
her a new chaise every time she wished to ride ? And who 
knows what influence — 

Swipes. Am I not named first in her will ? and did I not fur- 
nish her with my best small beer for more than six months ? 
and who knows — 

Frank. Gentlemen, I must leave you. (Going.) 

'Squire. (Putting on his spectacles very deliberately.) Pray, 
gentlemen, keep your seats ; I have not done yet. Let me see ; 
where was I ? Ay, " All my property, both personal and real, 
to my dear cousins, Samuel Swipes, of Malt Street, brewer," — 

Swipes. Yes ! 

'Squire. " And Christopher Currie, of Fly Court, saddler," — 

Cur. Yes ! 

'Squire. " To have and to hold, in trust, for the sole and 
exclusive benefit of my nephew, Francis Millington, until he 
shall have attained the age of twenty-one years ; by which time 
I hope he will have so far reformed his evil habits as that he may 
safely be intrusted with the large fortune which I hereby be- 
queath to him." 

Swipes. What's all this ? You don't mean that we are hum- 
Dugged ? In trust ! How does that appear ? Where is it ? 

'Squire. There ; in two words of as good old English as I 
ever penned. 

Cur. Pretty well too, Mr. 'Squire, if we must be sent for to 
be made a laughing stock of. She shall pay for every ride she 
has had out of my chaise, I promise you. 

Swipes. And for every drop of my beer. Fine times- if 
two sober, hard-working citizens are to be brought here to be 
made the sport of a graceless profligate ! But we will manage 
his property for him, Mr. Currie ; we will make him feel that 
trustees are not to be trifled with. 

Qut. That we will. 



36 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

*Squire. Not sj fast, gentlemen ; for the instrument is dated 
three years ago and the young gentleman must be already of 
age, and able to take care of himself. Is it not so, Francis ? 

Frank. It is, your worship. 

'Squire. Then, gentlemen, having attended to the breaking 
of the seal, according to law, you are released from any further 
trouble about the business. 



The American Government. — h. w. Hilliaed, 

Separated from the systems of the old world by the Atlan- 
tic, conscious of their responsibility, profoundly acquainted 
with the events of history, and with its ancient and modern illus- 
trations all before their eyes, the men who undertook the task of 
erecting a new government brought to it the noblest qualities. 
They presented a sublime spectacle. History describes upon 
none of its pages such a scene. Other governments had grown 
up under circumstances whose imperious pressure gave them 
their peculiar forms, and they had been modified from time to 
time, to keep pace with an advancing civilization ; but here was 
a government created by men emancipated from all foreign in- 
fluence, and who, in their deliberations, acknowledged no supreme 
authority but that of God. 

States already republican and independent were formed into 
a confederation, and the great principles of the government were 
embodied in a Constitution. The Union then established has 
ever since existed. Under its protection we havo grown from 
weakness to strength. Our wealth, our population, and our pow- 
er have steadily advanced ; and to-day we hold an undisputed 
empire over a territory stretching from the St. Lawrence to the 
Gulf of Mexico ; and the sparse population which, when the 
government was formed, fringed the Atlantic coast, has spread 
itself westward, the Rocky Mountains have been passed, and the 
laws, the letters, the traditions, and the religion of the colonists 
are seated upon the shores of the Pacific. 

Our progress has more than transcended that of the fabled 
god of the ancients, who, beginning his morning journey in the 
east, drove his flaming chariot through the sky, until he dipped 
his glowing axle in the western waves. Behind us have sprung 
up all the blessings of a high civilization ; nor will they disap- 
oear beneath the waves of that placid ocean which we have 
*eached in our march. There they will grow and flourish f anc 



THE ILLUSTRIOUS TRIO OF STATESMEN. jft 

their kindling lustre will spread over the Polynesian Islands, and 
gild the distant shores of Asia h ith a richer and purer splendor 
than they have ever enjoyed before. * * * 

We are yet in the freshness of our youth ; our country, the 
latest born of the great nations, is like the youngest daughter of 
King Lear, the fairest of the sisters • 

" Ah, mayst thou ever be what now thou art, 
Nor unbeseem the promise of thy spring." 

The horoscope which shone so resplendently over thy birth, O 
my country, announced a glorious destiny. We have witnessed 
its grand fulfilment. Berkeley's vision, revealed in poetic meas- 
ures, is fully realized—- 

'« Time's noblest offspring is the last." 

A powerful nation, in the full vigor of her youth, unfurls the 
banner of freedom, and its mighty folds float over a continent. 
Thrown out at first against a stormy sky, and in defiance of ty- 
rants, it is bathed to-day in the light of peace ; the eyes of all 
mankind are fixed upon it as the sign of hope. Shall it be rent 
asunder ? Shall its stars be quenched and its folds droop ? Shall 
it live in the memory of mankind only as the sign of fallen pow- 
er and departed glory ? No ! No, let it float forever, the stan- 
dard of a republic the proudest, the happiest, the greatest which 
the world has ever beheld. 

Let the sun, as he rises out of the Atlantic wave, gild it with 
his morning beam ; let him throw his parting splendor upon it as 
he sinks beneath the placid waters of the Pacific, its gorgeous 
folds still streaming with undiminished lustre over states free, 
powerful, and prosperous, associated in a Union as indissoluble 
as it is glorious 



The Illustrious Trio of Statesmen. —H. w.Hilliard, 

As an Orator, Mr. Clay stood unrivalled among the states- 
men of our times ; and if the power of a statesman is to be 
measured by the control which he exerts over an audience, he 
will take rank among the most illustrious men who, in hncient 
or modern times, have decided great questions by resistless elo- 
quence. 

Mr. Calhoun was the finest type of the pure Greek intellect 
which this country has ever produced. His speeches resemble 
Grecian sculpture, with all the purity and hardness of" marble 



6& KOSS'S StEAKEH. 

wl He tney show that the chisel was guided by the hand of a 
master. Demosthenes transcribed the history of Thucydides 
eight times, that he might acquire the strength and majesty of 
his style, and Mr. Calhoun had evidently studied the orations of 
the great Athenian with equal fidelity. He had much of his 
force and ardor, and his bearing was so full of dignity that it was 
easy to fancy, when you heard him, that you were listening to 
an oration from the lips of a Roman senator who had formed 
his style in the severe schools of Greece. 

Mr. Webster's oratory reaches the highest pitch of grandeur. 
He combines the pure philosophical faculty of investigation, which 
characterized the Greek mind, with the athletic power and ma- 
jesty which belonged to the Roman style. There is in his orations 
a blended strength and beauty surpassing any thing to be found 
in ancient or modern productions. He stands like a statue of 
Hercules wrought out of gold. He has been sometimes called 
the Demosthenes of this country ; but the attributes which he dis- 
played are not those which belonged to the Athenian orator. 
His speeches display the same power and beauty, and equal, if 
they do not surpass, in consummate ability, the noblest orations 
of Demosthenes ; but he wants the vehemence, the boldness, the 
impetuosity of the orator who wielded the fierce democracy of 
Athens at his will, and who, in his impassioned harangues, " shook 
the Arsenal, and fulmined over Greece." 

Mr. Clay's oratory differed from that of Mr. Webster and of 
Mr. Calhoun, and it was more effective than that of either of his 
contemporaries. Less philosophical than the one, and less ma- 
jestic than the other, he surpassed them both in the sway which 
he exerted over the assemblies which he addressed. Clear, con- 
vincing, impassioned, and powerful, he spoke the language of 
truth in its most commanding tones, and the deductions of reason 
uttered from his lips seemed to have caught the glow of inspira- 
tion. * * * 

He realized Mr. Webster's description of oratory : " The clear 
conception outrunning the deductions of logic ; the high purpose ; 
the firm resolve; the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, 
beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the 
whole man onward, right onward, to his object : this, this is elo- 
quence ; or, rather, it is something greater and higher than all 
eloquence ; it is action — noble, sublime, godlike action." 



WILLIAM TELL AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. 



William Tell among- the Mountains. — J. s. Kkowi*» 

Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again ! 
i hold to you the hands you first beheld, 
To show they still are free. Methinks I hear 
A spirit in your echoes answer me, 
And bid your tenant welcome to his home 
Again ! — O sacred forms, how proud you look ! 
How high you lift your heads into the sky ! 
How huge you are ! how mighty, and how free ! 
Ye are the things that tower, that shine ; whose smile 
Makes glad, whose frown is terrible, whose forms, 
Robed or unrobed, do all the impress wear 
Of awe divine. Ye guards of liberty, 
I'm with you once again ! — I call to you 
With all my voice ! — I hold my hands to you, 
To show they still are free. I rush to you 
As though I could embrace you ! 

Scaling yonder peak, 
I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow 
O'er the abyss : his broad-expanded wings 
Lay calm and motionless upon the air, 
As if he floated there without their aid, 
By the sole act of his unlorded will, 
That buoyed him proudly up. Instinctively 
I bent my bow ; yet kept he rounding still 
His airy circle, as in the delight 
Of measuring the ample range beneath 
And round about ; absorbed, he heeded not 
The deati that threatened him. I could not shoot ! — 
'Twas libeity ! — I turned my bow aside, 
And let him soar away ! 



Gratitude to Parents and Teachers. — D. P. Page. 

When a distinguished writer said, " God be thanked for ihe 
gift of mothers and schoolmasters," he expressed but the com- 
mon sentiment of the human heart. The name of parent justly 
enkindles the warmest emotions in the heart of him who has 
gone out from his native home to engage in the busy scenes of 
the work-dav world ; and when sometimes he retires from the 



"0 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

companionship of new-made friends, to recall the picture ol trie 
past and tne loved of other days* — to think 

" Of childish joys, when bounding boyhood knew 
No grief, but chased the gorgeous butterfly, 
And gamboled with the breeze that tossed about 
His silken curls," — 

how sweetly do the genial influences of home and childhood, 
with all their hallowed associations, come stealing over the soul ! 
The world is forgotten ; care may not intrude upon this sacred 
hour ; objects of sense are unheeded ; the call to pleasure is 
disregarded; while the rapt soul, introverted — transported — 
dwells with unspeakable delight upon its consecrated recollection 
of all that is venerable, all that is sacred in the name of Parent. 

At this favored hour, how the heart swells at the thought of a 
mother's love ! The smiles, the kind words, the sympathy, the 
counsels, the prayers, the tears — how fondly the memory treas- 
ures them up, and claims them for its own ! And though death 
may have long since intruded, and consigned that gentle form to 
the cold earth, rudely sundering the cherished bonds of affection, 
and leaving the hearthstone desolate — though change may have 
brought strangers to fell the favorite tree, to remove the ancient 
landmarks, to lay waste the pleasant places, and even to tread 
carelessly by the humble mound that marks the revered spot 
where "departed worth is laid" — though Time, "with his 
effacing fingers," may have been busy in obliterating the im- 
pressions of childhood from the mind, or in burying them deeply 
beneath the rubbish of perplexing cares — still the true heart 
never tires with the thought of a fond parent, nor ever ceases 
to " thank God upon every remembrance " of a pious, devoted 
mother. 

Thus it should ever be. Nothing on earth should be allowed 
to claim the gratitude which is justly due to judicious parents. 
But the faithful, devoted teacher — the former of youthful char- 
acter, and the guide of youthful study — will be sure to have 
t;ie next place in the grateful heart. Whether the young man 
treads the deck of the noble ship, in his lonely watch, as she 
proudly walks the waters by night — or journeys among stran- 
gers in foreign lands — wherever he goes, or however employed 
— as often as his thoughts revisit the scenes of his childhood, 
and dwell with interest upon the events that marked his youthful 
progress, he will recur to the old familiar school house, call up 
its well-remembered incidents — its joys and its sorrows — its 
trials and its triumphs — its all-pervading and ever abiding influ« 
ences — and devoutly thank God for the gift of a faithful, self 
denying, patient teacher. 



THE WORLD TRANSITORY. §1 

The World transitory. — Rev. j. g. Pikk. 

(AN IMPRESSIVE EXHORTATION.) 

Could you revisit the now crowded streets of a populous citj 
when one hundred years are passed, if no new generation arose 
you would find them entirely deserted ; not a single passenger 
in them, nor an inhabitant in the houses ; but the streets, where 
a blade of grass is never seen, then covered with it ; the houses 
fal'ing into ruin; many of them already in the dust; the bird3 
of the desert building their nests in the deserted rooms, and 
foxes, half hid with grass and nettles, peeping through the shat- 
tered windows ; the houses of divine worship all forsaken ; 
every preacher gone from his pulpit; every crowded congrega- 
tion vanished and forgotten in the dust ; and all as silent as the 
midst of an Arabian desert, or as the chambers of the grave. 

Or, view the subject by indulging pensive reflection on the 
transient nature of all the most endeared earthly ties. Think 
with yourself, "Could 1 rise from the tomb when the year two 
thousand comes, and look around on the world I shall then have 
so long forsaken, what a scene of desolation would it present to 
me ! Not those only whom 1 saw go before me, but all I left, 
would have gone to eternity. Could I approach their now 
cheerful hearths, 1 should miss them there ; walk in their gar- 
dens or their fields, I should not find them there ; go to their 
tombs, and even there would not one wretched trace be found, 
nor even a stone remain, to tell where they had ever been." 

Look forward a little further, to the period when all the noise, 
and tumult, and business of this world shall have closed forever. 
How has it vanished ! How have its short-lived multitudes 
departed ! Their business over, their little pleasures finished 
their hasty sorrows ended ; their doom pronounced, their endless 
dwelling fixed, and their once gay, distracting, perplexing world 
lost — vanished — gone forever. Let its admirers tell us of hon- 
ors and fame, that will last as long as the sun shall shine, or 
the world endure. Alas, contemptible honors! that will endure 
for so brief a span ! The sun is but a lamp that lights oui 
pathway to an endless world. The earth is but the road pre- 
pared for pilgrims to travel, till, in the eternal abodes of grief 
or bliss, they reach an endless home. It is but as a moment, as 
an inch of time, as the darting of an arrow, the falling of a star 
the twinkling of an eye, or the glancing of a thought, before all 
which you now behold shall pass away from you as a dr^ar* 
when one awaketh, and give place to those eternal scenes. 



§2 R0SS ; S SPEAKER 

Then farewell, earth ; farewell, sun, moon and stars ; farewell, 
a busy or an idle, a sad or a pleasurable world. But no fare- 
wells are known beyond the grave. To the scenes which will 
then open upon you you will never bid adieu. Start forward, 
then, my fellow-pilgrim, start forward, in your thoughts, to ever- 
lasting scenes, and roam among the immeasurable ages that lie 
beyond the judgment day. How the world recedes as you 
advance ! It sinks to a speck — to a mote — to nothing. How 
six thousand years, or six thousand ages, dwindle as you sail 
down the tide of eternity ! They sink to an hour — to a moment 
—to the twinkling of an eye — to nothingness itself. O, re- 
member that on that awful tide you must shortly sail, when the 
world is nothing to you. Strive to love it no more than you will 
do, when, myriads of ages after its destruction, you look back 
upon it. Value its honors as you will value them then, and prize 
its pleasures as then you will prize them ; and let the prospect 
of those amazing scenes strike deeper on your heart the salutary 
thought — I am but a traveler here. * * * 

ETERNITY ! blessed or dreadful word ! whose meaning no 
numbers can unfold, no ages can declare ; into whose depths no 
eye but that of God has pierced ; a span whose length no heart 
has ever comprehended. O, look at that eternity more ! So 
near the world where all is solemn, should you trifle? So near 
the state where all is endless, can you prize what is perishing ? 
At the gate of eternity, on the threshold of an endless world, or, 
at most, with but a few steps before you must step into it, are 
the concerns of a fleeting pilgrimage of much importance? 
Are you so near doing what you must do forever, so near 
rejoicing where you must rejoice forever, or mourning where 
you must mourn forever, and should not this make a transitory 
life and a perishing world little things indeed ? Live, then, O 
live as a traveler to eternity; a pilgrim here, pressing to a 
happy, endless home. 



A Psalm Of Life. — H. W. Longfellow. 

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 
Life is but an empty dream ; 

For the soul is dead that slumbers, 
And things are not what they seem. 

Life is real ! — life is earnest ! 
And the grave is not its goal : 



THE LEPEH. 9.1 

Dust thou art — to dust returnest, 
Was not spoken of the soul. 

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 

Is our destined end or way ; 
But to act, that each to-morrow 

Find us farther than to-day. 

Art is long, and time is fleeting, 

And our hearts, though stout and brave 

Still, like muffled drums, are beating 
Funeral marches to the grave. 

In the world's broad field of battle, 

In the bivouac of life, 
Be not like dumb, driven cattle — 

Be a hero in the strife. 

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant ; 

Let the dead past bury its dead ; 
Act — act in the living present, 

Heart within, and God o'er head. 

Lives of great men all remind us 

We can make our lives sublime, 
And departing, leave behind us 

Footprints on the sands of time ; -— 

Footprints, that perhaps another, 

Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 

Seeing, shall take heart again. 

Let us, then, be up and doing, 

With a heart for any fate ; 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 

Learn to labor and to wait ! 



The Leper. — T*. P. Willis. 

a Room for the leper ! room ! " And, as he came, 

The cry passed on — " Room for the leper ! room ! ** 

£ 



noss S SPEAKER. 

And aside they stood - 
Matron, and child, and pitiless manhood — all 
Who met him on his way, and let him pass. 
And onward through the open gate he came, 
A leper, with the ashes on his brow, 
Sackcloth about his loins, and on his lip 
A covering — stepping painfully and slow, 
And with a difficult utterance, like one 
Whos» heart is with an iron nerve put down, 
Crying, " Unclean ! unclean ! " 

'Twas now the first 
Of the Judean autumn, and the leaves, 
Whose shadows lay so still upon his path, 
Had put their beauty forth beneath the eye 
Of Judah's loftiest noble. He was young, 
And eminently beautiful, and life 
Mantled in eloquent fullness on his lip, 
And sparkled in his glance ; and in his mien 
There was a gracious pride that every eye 
Followed with benisons — and this was he! 
With the soft airs of summer, there had come 
A torpor on his frame, which not the speed 
Of his best barb, nor music, nor the blast 
Of the bold huntsman's horn, nor aught that stirt 
The spirit to its bent, might drive away. 
The blood beat not as wont within his veins ; 
Dimness crept o'er his eye ; a drowsy sloth 
Fettered his limbs like palsy, and his mien, 
With all its loftiness, seemed struck with eld. 
Even his voice was changed — a languid moan 
Taking the place of the clear silver key ; 
And brain and sense grew faint, as if the light 
And very air were steeped in sluggishness. 
He strove with it a while, as manhood will. 
Ever too proud for weakness, till the rein 
Slackened within his grasp, and in its poise 
The arrowy jereed, like an aspen, shook. 
Day after day, he lay as if asleep : 
His skin grew dry and bloodless, and white scales 
Circled with livid purple, covered him, 
- And Helon was a leper ! 

It was noon, 
And Helon knelt beside a stagnant pool 



THE STANDAKD OF THE CONSTITUTION. 05 

In ihe lone wilderness, and bathed his brow, 

Hot with the burning leprosy, and touched 

The loathsome water to his fevered lips, 

Praying that he might be so blest — to die ! 

Footsteps approached, and, with no strength to flee. 

He drew the covering closer on his lip, 

Crying, " Unclean ! unclean ! " and in the folds 

Of the coarse sackcloth shrouding up his face, 

He fell upon the earth till they should pass. 

Nearer the Stranger came, and, bending o'er 

The leper's prostrate form, pronounced his name — 

" Helon ! " The voice was like the master-tone 

Of a rich instrument — most strangely sweet ; 

And the dull pulses of disease awoke, 

And for a moment beat beneath the hot 

And leprous scales with a restoring thrill. 

" Helon ! arise ! " and he forgot his curse, 

And rose and stood before Him. 

He looked on Helon earnestly a while, 

As if his heart were moved, and, stooping down, 

He took a little water in his hand, 

And laid it on his brow, and said, " Be clean ! " 

And lo ! the scales fell from him, and his blood 

Coursed with delicious coolness through his vein? 

And his dry palms grew moist, and on his brow 

The dewy softness of an infant's stole. 

His leprosy was cleansed, and he fell down 

Prostrate at Jesus' feet, and worshiped him. 



The Standard .of the Constitution. 

Webstek 

If classical history has been found to be, is now, and shall 
continue to be, the concomitant of free institutions, and of popu- 
lar eloquence, what a field is opening to us for another Herodo- 
tus, another Thucydides, (only may his theme not be a Pelopon- 
riesian war,) and another Livy ! And, let me say, gentlemen, 
that if we, and our posterity, shall be true to the Christian 
religion, — if we and they shall live always in the fear of God, 
and shall respect his commandments, — if we and they shall 
maintain just moral sentiments, and such conscientious convic- 
ion.s of duty as shall control the heart and life — we may have 




t)6 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

♦he highest hopes of the future fortunes of our country. And, 
if we maintain those institutions of government, and that political 
Union, — exceeding all praise as much as it exceeds all former 
examples of political associations, — we may be sure of one 
thing, that while our country furnishes materials for a thousand 
masters of the historic art, it will afford no topic for a Gibbon. 
It will have no Decline and Fall. It will go on, prospering and 
to prosper. But, if we and our posterity reject religious instruc- 
tion and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with 
the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political 
constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sud- 
denly a catastrophe may overwhelm us that shall bury all our 
glory in profound obscurity. If that catastrophe shall happen, 
let it have no history. Let the horrible narrative never be 
written ; let its fate be like that of the lost books of Livy, which 
no human eye shall ever read, or the missing Pleiad, of which 
no man can ever know more than that it is lost, and lost forever. 

But, gentlemen, I will not take my leave of you in a tone of 
despondency. We may trust that Heaven will not forsake us, 
so long as we do not forsake ourselves. Are we of this genera- 
tion so derelict — have we so little of the blood of our revolu- 
tionary fathers coursing through our veins — that we can not 
preserve what our ancestors achieved ? The world will cry out 
u Shame " upon us, if we show ourselves unworthy to be the 
descendants of those great and illustrious men who fought for 
their liberty, and secured it to their posterity by the constitution. 

The constitution has enemies, secret and professed ; but they 
can not disguise the fact that it secures us many benefits. These 
enemies are unlike in character, but they all have some fault to 
find. Some of them' are enthusiasts, hot-headed, self-sufficient, 
and headstrong. They fancy that they can make out for them- 
selves a better path than that laid down for them. Phaeton, the 
ion of Apollo, thought he could find a better course across the 
leavens for the sun. 

"Thus PhaCton once, amidst the ethereal plains, 
Leaped on his father's car, and seized the reins, 
Far from his course impelled the glowing sun, 
Till Nature's laws to wild disorder run." 

Other enemies there are, more cool and with more calcula- 
lon. These have a deeper and more traitorous purpose. They 
lave spoken of forcible resistance to the provisions of the con- 
stitution ; they now speak of secession ! Let me say, gen- 
^jTjen, secession from us is accession elsewhere, fje wfon 



DANIEL WEBSTER. tf 

renounces the protection of the stars and stripes shelters him- 
self under the shadow of another flag, you may rest assured of 
that. Now, to counteract the efforts of these malcontents, the 
friends of the constitution must rally. ALL its friends, of 
whatever section, whatever their sectional opinions may be 
must unite for its preservation. To that standard we must 
adhere, and uphold it through evil report and good report. We 
will sustain it, and meet death itself, if it come ; we will ever 
encounter and defeat error, by day and by night, in light or in 
darkness, — thick darkness, — if it come, till 

" Danger's troubled night is o'er, 
And the star of Peace return." 



Daniel Webster. — H. w. Hilliard, 

In a snow-storm a sleigh was seen ascending a hill in th~ 
State of New Hampshire, in which were seated a man already 
mature, of fine, bold face, and a youth of generous countenance. 
The elder traveler addresses some words to the younger, which 
seem to move him, for he presently rests his head upon the 
shoulder of his companion, and his eyes are filled with tears. 

The travelers were Ebenezer Webster and his son Daniel, 
and the father had just announced to his son his purpose to send 
him to college. Daniel, overcome with emotion at the opening 
of such a career, and at the thought of the sacrifice which his 
father is about to make for him, can not restrain his tears. 
There the ardor of a great soul broke forth, and the eye of the 
young eagle flashed as it turned for the first time toward the 
sun. * * * 

A really great man is the grandest object which this world 
ever exhibits. The heavens in their magnificence — the ocean 
in its sublime immensity — mountains standing firm upon their 
granite foundations — all are less imposing than a living man in 
the possession of his highest faculties. 

Demosthenes urging the Athenians to march against Philip 
interests us more than all Greece. Hannibal scaling the Alps 
with his victorious legions is a sublimer object than the Alps 
themselves. Marius seated upon the ruins of Carthage makes 
us forget the fall of an empire in contemplating the fortunes of 
a man. Nelson upon the deck of the Victory, with the star 
glittering upon his breast, is a grander sight than the two hostile 
(Icets. Napoleon at Waterloo, riding to the brow of the hill fct 
7 



*8 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

he head of the Imperial Guard when they were to make then* 
ast charge upon the British lines, is an object of higher interest 
than all the stern array of battle beside. Lord Chatham sinking 
in the House of Lords is the noblest object in the British empire ; 
and Washington crossing the Delaware at night, amid the crash- 
ing ice, fixes our attention in the midst of the dread magnificence 
of the winter scene, and we look, upon him as we would upon an 
avenging archangel going forth to smite the invading army. 

Our country has produced some great men. They glow in 
the heaven of the past like stars in the firmament, and in that 
splendid constellation we see Webster in full-orbed glory. In 
history, as in the heavens, one star differeth from another star 
in glory. 



The Same, continued. 

It is not always that the majesty of the intellect is symbolized 
in the external man, but in the case of Webster it was so. His 
appearance was nothing less than grand. In the midst of his 
peers in the Senate, he stood like a tower, in shape and gesture 
proudly eminent ; or he sat, amid its august deliberations, as if 
upon his broad shoulders alone he could bear the weight of the 
government. His head rose with an ample swell, which remind- 
ed one of that dome which Michael Angelo hung in the heavens. 
His eyes were large, dark, and of that fathomless depth which 
gives so fine an expression to the face. 

These, with his dark complexion and hair, presented at all 
times a spectacle which would fix the attention if seen in any 
assemblage of men ; but it was when he was roused by some 
great theme, or fired by some important debate, that he rose 
into an aspect of Olympian power and grandeur. Then we 
•ould comprehend Milton's description of the style of Demos- 
henes : — 

" He shook the Arsenal, 
And fulmined over Greece." 

\ thunder-cloud seemed at times to hang upon his brow, but as 
le advanced in his argument, something like a smile, resembling 

ray of sunlight, would pass over his features. 

No grander spectacle could be witnessed than that w'.ich he 
iresented when his mighty intellect was in full play, Mid the 
ireai passions of his nature glowed in his countenance. It was 
(ike looking upon a great mountain, in whoso depths the nohcu 



YOUTHFUL LOVE. 99 

ore, under the intense heat of internal fires, begins to flow, and 
at length pours out in a broad stream of living flame. There 
was a great deal of poetry in Mr. Webster's nature, and it was 
this that gave him his preeminence as a writer and an orator. 
There can be no true eloquence which is not in some way allied 
to poetry, nor can there be true greatness of any kind which is 
the work of the head ; the heart must originate it, or it is no 
greatness at all. 

* Among the mighty and ponderous thoughts conceived by th 
capacious mind of this great man, he was once asked by an int 
mate friend to name the greatest and most sublime. Without 
a moment's hesitancy he replied, " My individual responsibil- 
ity to God " — a thought which can be apprehended in all the 
grandeur of its proportions only by the highest created intelli- 
gence. * * * 

His politics must not now be discussed ; but we may be 
allowed to say that it is the crowning glory of his career that 
the last great utterance which he ever made — his speech of the 
7th of March, 1850 — was an utterance of great and patriotic 
sentiments, sounding out through the whole land ; appealing to 
Massachusetts to stand by the constitution ; assuring the south 
of his purpose to carry out the provisions of the national com- 
pact ; calling upon the country, as a conscript father might have 
appealed to Rome, to be true to herself — an utterance which 
will sound out to future ages. 



Youthful Love. — Pollox's Cottbsb or Tun. 

It was an eve of autumn's holiest mood. 
The cornfields, bathed in Cynthia's silver light, 
Stood ready for the reaper's gathering hand ; 
And all the winds slept soundly. Nature seemed, 
In silent contemplation, to adore 
Its Maker. Now and then the aged leaf 
Fell from its fellows, rustling to the ground, 
And, as it fell, bade man think on his end. 
On vale and lake, on wood and mountain high, 
With pensive wing outspread, sat heavenly Thought, 
Conversing with itself. Vesper looked forth, 
From out her western hermitage, and smiled ; 

* Wei have taken the liberty of interpolating this 



LofC. 



,00 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

And up the east, unclouded, rode the moon, 

With all her stars, gazing on earth intense, 
As if she saw some wonder walking there. 

Such was the night, so lovely, still, serene, 
When, by a hermit thorn that on the hill 
Had seen a hundred flowery ages pass, 
A damsel kneeled to offer up her prayer, 
Her prayer nightly offered, nightly heard. 
This ancient thorn had been the meeting place 
Of love, before his country's voice had called 
The ardent youth to fields of honor far 
Beyond the wave ; and hither now repaired, 
Nightly, the maid, by God's all-seeing eye 
Seen only, while she sought this boon alone, 
" Her lover's safety, and his quick return." 
In holy, humble attitude she kneeled, 
And to her bosom, fair as moonbeam, pressed 
One hand, the other lifted up to heaven. 
Her eye, upturned, bright as the star of morn, 
As violet meek, excessive ardor streamed, 
Wafting away her earnest heart to God. 
Her voice, scarce uttered, soft as zephyr sighs 
On morning lily's cheek, though soft and low, 
Yet heard in heaven, heard at the mercy-seat. 
A tear-drop wandered on her lovely face ; 
It was a tear of faith and holy fear, 
Pure as the drops that hang, at dawning time, 
On yonder willows by the stream of life. 
On her the moon looked stedfastly ; the stars, 
That circle nightly round the eternal throne, 
Glanced down, well pleased ; and Everlasting Love 
Gave gracious audience to her prayer sincere. 

O, had her lover seen her thus alone, 
Thus holy, wrestling thus, and all for him ! 
Nor did he not : for ofttimes Providence 
With unexpected joy the fervent prayer 
Of faith surprised. Returned from long delay, 
With glory crowned of righteous actions won, 
The sacred thorn, to memory dear, first sought 
The youth, and found it at the happy hour, 
Just when the damsel kneeled herself to pray. 
Wrapped in devotion, pleading with her God 
She saw mm not, heard not his foot approach. 
All holy images seemed too impure 



THE CONTROL OF SPIRIT OVER MATTER. 10i 

To emblem her he saw. A seraph kneeled, 

Beseeching for his ward, before the throne, 

Seemed fittest, pleased him best. Sweet was the thought \ 

But sweeter still the kind remembrance came, 

That she was flesh and blood, formed for himself, 

The plighted partner of his future life. 

And as they met, embraced, and sat, embowered, 

In woody chambers of the starry night, 

Spirits of love about them ministered, 

And God, approving, blessed the holy joy. 



The Control of Spirit over Matter. — R*v. Da. Winaxs. 

No one thinks of holding either infants or insane persons of 
mature age responsible for the moral character of their action ; 
though they are the subjects of passion, and resolutely will their 
own course of action. This is the case, because they are deemed 
incapable of perceiving the moral relations of the action upon 
which they have determined, and for no other reason. Whereas 
perceptions of moral relations, susceptibility to passion and will, 
wherever they coexist, constitute the spirit which is endowed 
with them a responsible agent. That power to control matter 
belongs to spirit, none can doubt, after duly considering the 
control which the mind or spirit in man exerts over the material 
portion of his own nature — his nerves and his muscles, and, 
through these, over the world of matter without himself. How 
this control is exerted, it is idle to inquire ; but the fact itself is 
so notorious and so indisputable, that, however inscrutable the 
mode of operation, the power is, we suppose, universally admit- 
ted to exist. 

What mighty achievements, by means of these few and sim- 
ple capabilities, has spirit — creature-spirit — performed. To 
what hights of science, to what depths of discovery, to what an \ 
extent of knowledge has it attained ! How has it dazzled the J 
eye and charmed the imagination, by the splendors and the | 
beauty of architecture, sculpture, and painting! With what! 
heart-melting melodies and soul-thrilling harmonies has it, by! 
means of eloquence, music, and song, enraptured the listening I 
thousands, whose happiness it has been to come within the range 
of their influence ! How has it multiplied to man the means of 
subsistence and comfort, and abridged the toil* of the condition 



102 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

in which his rebellion has placed him, in which he is doomed 
" in the sweat of his face to eat bread all the days of his life." 

What efficient forms of government has it instituted, to re- 
press the vices of the refractory, and to protect society in the 
enjoyment of its rights and privileges ! What noble examples 
of moral virtue, in sages, in statesmen, in martyrs, and in the 
poor and unregarded among men, has it produced, to display 
the true and elevated dignity to which man, in all kinds of 
society and in all kinds of circumstances, may attain ! And 
now pure, how ennobling, how worthy of God, and how suited 
to the nature, condition, and capabilities of man, the system of 
religion, which, under the instruction of revelation, has been 
compassed by the spirit of man ! 



Sublimity and Beneficence of Creative Power, 

Rev. Dr. "Winans. 

" And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered 
together unto one place, and let the dry land appear ; and it was so. 
And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of 
the waters called he seas." Immediately, upon the divine com- 
mand, down sank more than half the earth's surface, in many 
parts of it to unfathomable depths. From all portions not thus 
depressed rushed the waters under the whole heavens ; till by 
suitable drains were drawn together, in ocean's capacious basins, 
the superfluous waters of the whole earth, and the dry land 
emerged, with mountain and valley, hill and dale, diversifying 
its face, to be the proper scene of those vegetable and animal 
organizations with which the all- wise Creator was about to 
adorn and people its vast area. 

The sea has been called the wide waste of waters. Nothing 
could be more unjust ; for, besides that the sea is occupied by 
innumerable tribes of sensuous beings, whose constitutions are 
adapted to the circumstances in which they are placed, is it not 
notorious that, without such a surface as is spread out by the 
seas, evaporation, sufficient to the purpose of watering the earth, 
by dews and rains, would be impracticable ; and earth, through- 
out its whole extent, would be as sterile and as arid as the 
deserts of Sahara? Then how greatly has the intercourse 
between the most distant parts of the globe been facilitated by 
the existence of this highway of nations ! 

A waste of waters ! Nay, verily, but a scene of abundant 



SUBLIMITY OF CREATIVE POWER. 10,i 

and varied life and enjoyment — a reservoir, whence the earth 
is irrigated and rendered fruitful — the artery of social exist- 
ence — the great thoroughfare of commerce ! To render it tne 
more suitable for this latter purpose, as well as to prevent nox- 
ious exhalations from its immensely extended surface, the water 
of the seas is strongly impregnated with salts, which increase its 
buoyancy and lessen its tendency to stagnation and decomposi- 
tion. Well might the Psalmist adoringly exclaim, " In wisdom 
hast thou made them all ! — so is this great and wide sea ; 
wherein are things, creeping innumerable, both small and great 
beasts. There go the ships ! ' Such and so important is the 
sea. * * * 

Upon the earth or dry land was simultaneously spread out the 
beautiful carpet of green, variegated with flowers of every hue, 
and sending up delicious fragrance to regale the senses of be- 
ings capable of such gratification ; then rose the shrub, in lowly 
beauty, by the tide of the stately pine, the majestic oak, the 
beautiful cedar, and the graceful palm. Then, too, the laden 
boughs of herb, shrub, and tree displayed their various fruits, 
rich, delicious, and nutritive — the bounty of Providence abun- 
dant ir. resources, and as munificent as abundant. Every vari- 
ety of taste is catered to in this provision. Every sense, capable 
of being served by such ministry, is provided with appropriate 
gratification in these fruits of the field and of the forest. Feel- 
ing, and smell, and taste, and sight are as intensely regaled as 
if pleasure were the only object of the provision, instead of 
being a mere accessory to the more important purpose of per- 
petuating existence. * * * 

The broad world had already been surrounded by a firma- 
ment, or atmosphere, which, besides being the great magazine 
of meteoric agencies, by which the earth is rendered productive 
of vegetation, and rendered habitable by the various tribes of 
animals which Rvc upon its surface, is, moreover, the great 
instrument of sound — the chord whose vibrations give utterance 
to all the varied notes of nature's mighty concert. By its means 
is heard the eloquence of the orator and the melody of the 
musician — the whisper of the zephyr and the roar of the thun- 
der. The instruction and the pleasure of conversation could 
not be enjoyed without its intervention. And what is most im- 
portant of all, perhaps, in the uses of the atmosphere, is that, by 
means of respiration, it imparts vitality to the blood, upon whicl 
the continuance of life is constantly and absolutely dependent 



104 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Marmion and the Douglas. — sown 

Not far advanced was morning day, 
When Marmion did his troop array 

To Surrey's camp to ride ; 
He had safe conduct for his band, 
Beneath the royal seal and hand, 

And Douglas gave a guide. 
The train from out the castle drew ; 
But Marmion stopped to bid adieu : 

" Though something I might plain," he said, 
" Of cold respect to stranger guest, 
Sent hither by your king's behest, 

While in Tantallon's towers I staid, 
Part we in friendship from your land, 
And, noble earl, receive my hand." 
But Douglas round him drew his cloak, 
Folded his arms, and thus he spoke : 
" My manors, halls, and bowers shall still 
Be open at my sovereign's will, 
To each one whom he lists, howe'or 
Unmeet to be the owner's peer : 
My castles are my king's alone, 
From turret to foundation stone — 
The hand of Douglas is his own, 
And never shall in friendly grasp 
The hand of such as Marmion clasp." 
Burned Marmion's swarthy cheek like fir* 
And shook his very frame for ire, 

And, " This to me ! " he said : 
" An 'twere not for thy hoary beard, 
Such hand as Marmion's had not spared 

To cleave the Douglas' head ! 
And first, I tell thee, haughty peer, 
He who does England's message here, 
Although the meanest in her state, 
May well, proud Angus, be thy mate : 
And, Douglas, more I tell thee here, 

Even in thy pitch of pride, 
Here in thy hold, thy vassals near, 
(Nay, never look upon your lord, 
And lay your hands upon your sword,) 

I tell thee, thou'rt defied ! 



THE DEATH OF MARMIOlx 10& 

And if thou saidst, I am not peer 
To any lord in Scotland here, 
Lowland or Highland, far or near, 

Lord Angus, thou hast lied." 
On the earl's cheek the flush of rage 
O'ercame the ashen hue of age ; 
Fierce he broke forth : " And dar'st thou then 
To beard the lion in his den, 

The Douglas in his hall ? 
And hop'st thou hence unscathed to go ? 
No, by St. Bride of Bothwell, no ! 
Up drawbridge, grooms — what, warder, ho I 

Let the portcullis fall." 
Lord Marmion turned, — well was his need, — 
And dashed the rowels in his steed, 
Like arrow through the archway sprung ; 
The ponderous grate behind him rung : 
To pass there was such scanty room, 
The bars, descending, razed his plume. 



The Death of Marmion. — Boom. 

With that, straight up the hill there rode 
Two horsemen drenched with gore, 

And in their arms, a helpless load, 
A wounded knight they bore. 

His hand still strained the broken brand ; 

His arms were smeared with blood and sand ; 

Dragged from among the horses' feet, 

With dinted shield and helmet beat, 

The falcon crest and plumage gone, 

Can that be haughty Marmion ? 

When, doffed his casque, he felt free air, 

Around 'gan Marmion wildly stare : 

" Where's Harry Blount ? Fitz-Eustace where? 

Linger ye here, ye hearts of hare ? 

Redeem my pennon — charge again ! 

Cry — ' Marmion to the rescue ! ' — Vain ! 

Last of my race, on battle plain 

That shout shall ne'er be heard again ! — 

Yet my last thought is England's — fly ! 

Must I hid twice ? — hence, varlets ! fly ! 



106 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

Leave Marmion here alone — to die." 

They parted, and alone he lay : 

With fruitless labor Clara bound, 

And strove to stanch the gushing wound : 

The monk, with unavailing cares, 

Exhausted all the church's prayers. 

Ever, he said, that, close, and near, 

A lady's voice was in his ear, 

And that the priest he could not hear ; 

For that she ever sung, 
" In the lost battle, borne down by the flying, 
Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying ! ' 

So the notes rung : — 
" Avoid thee, fiend ! — with cruel hand, 
Shake not the dying sinner's sand ! 
O, look, my son, upon yon sign 
Of the Redeemer's grace divine ; 

O, think on faith and bliss ! 
By many a death bed I have been, 
And many a sinner's parting seen, 

But never aught like this." 
The war, that for a space did fail, 
Now trebly thundering swelled the gale, 

And, " Stanley ! " was the cry. 
A light on Marmion's visage spread, 

And fired his glazing eye : 
With dying hand, above his head, 
He shook the fragment of his blade, 

And shouted, "Victory! — 
Charge, Chester, charge ! On, Stanley, on J " 
Were the last words of Marmion. 



The Union. — Webster, 

It is not to be denied that we live in the midst of strong 
agitations; in the midst of dangers to the institutions of our 
government. The imprisoned winds are let loose. u The east 
the north, and the stormy south are all combined to make the 
whole ocean toss its billows to the skies, and disclose its pro- 
foundest depths." I do not affect to hold, or to be fit to hold,, 
the helm in this combat with the political elements ; but I have 
a duty to perform, and I intend to perform it with fidelity — uq\ 



THE UNION. 107 

without a sense of surrounding dangers, and not without hope. 
I have a part to act ; not for my own security and safety, — for 
I am looking out for no fragment upon which to float away from 
the wreck, if wreck is to ensue, — but for the good of the whole, 
and the preservation of the whole. 

I speak to-day for the preservation of the Union ; I speak 
from a solicitous and anxious desire for the restoration to the 
country of that quiet and that harmony which make the bless- 
ings of this Union so rich and so dear to us all. I should much 
prefer to hear from every member upon this floor declarations 
of opinion that this Union could never be dissolved, than the 
declarations of opinion that in any case, under the pressure of 
any circumstances, such a dissolution was possible. I hear with 
pain, and anguish, and distress, the word secession, when it falls 
from the lips of those who are eminent, patriotic, known to the 
country, and known to the world, for their political services. 
Secession ! peaceable secession ! Your eyes and mine are 
never destined to see that miracle. 

I would rather hear of natural blasts and mildews, of war, 
pestilence, and famine, than to hear gentlemen talk of secession ; 
of breaking up this great government, of dismembering this 
great country. Gentlemen are not serious when they talk of 
peaceable secession and dissolution. Peaceable secession ! The 
dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion ! The 
breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling 
the surface ! Who is foolish enough — I ask every body's par- 
don — who is foolish enough to expect to see any such thing ? 
He who sees these states now revolving in harmony around one 
common centre, and expects to see them quit their places, and 
fly ofT without convulsions, may look out the next day to see the 
heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, and jostle against each 
other in the realms of space, without producing a crush of the 
universe. 

Such a thing as peaceable secession ! It is utterly impossible. 
Is the constitution under which we live, covering this whole 
country, to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the 
snows upon the mountains are melted under the influence of a 
vernal sun, to disappear almost unobserved ? Our ancestors 
would rebuke and reproach us ; our children and grandchildren 
would cry shame upon us, if we of this generation should tar- 
nish those ensigns of the honor, power and harmony of the 
Union, which we now behold with so much joy and gratitude. 

Peaceable secession ! A concurrent resolution of all the 
members of this great republic to separate ! Where is the line 



108 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

to be drawn ? What states are to be associated ? What is to 
become of the army ? What is to become of the navy ? What 
is to become of the public lands ? Alas ! what is to remain 
America ? What am I to be ? Where is our flag to remain ? 
Where is the eagle still to soar aloft ? or is he to cower, and 
shrink, and fall to the earth ? 

Sir, we could not sit down here to-day, and draw a line of 
separation that would satisfy any five men in the country. 
There are natural causes that would keep and tie us together 
and there are social and domestic relations which we could not 
break if we would, and which we should not if we could. 



Rienzfs Address to the Romans. — Mabt r. limoux 

Friends, 
I come not here to talk. Ye know too well 
The story of our thralldom. We are slaves ! 
The bright sun rises to his course, and lights 
A race of slaves ! He sets, and his last beam 
Falls on a slave. Not such as, swept along 
By the full tide of power, the conqueror leads 
To crimson glory and undying fame ; 
But base, ignoble slaves — slaves to a horde 
Of petty despots, feudal tyrants ; lords, 
Rich in some dozen paltry villages ; 
Strong in some hundred spearmen ; only great 
In that strange spell, a name. Each hour, dark fraud. 
Or open rapine, or protected murder, 
Cry out against them. But this very day, 
An honest man, my neighbor, — there he stands, — 
Was struck — struck like a dog — by one who wore 
The badge of Ursini ; because, forsooth, 
He tossed not high his ready cap in air, 
Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts, 
At sight of that great ruffian. Be we men, 
And suffer such dishonor ? — men, and wash not 
The stain away in blood ? Such shames are common 
I have known deeper wrongs, — I, that speak to ye. 
I had a brother, once ; a gracious boy, 
Full of all gentleness, of calmest hope, 
Of sweet and quiet joy. O, how I loved 
That gracious boy ! Younger by fifteen years * 



MAN AND WOMAN IN CONTRAST. 109 

Brother at once and son. He left my side, 

A summer bloom on his fair cheeks, a smile 

Parting his innocent lips. In one short hour 

The pretty, harmless boy was slain ! I saw 

His corse, his mangled corse ; and then I cried 

For vengeance. Rouse ye, Romans ! rouse ye, slaves! 

Have ye brave sons ? Look in the next fierce brawl 

To see them die. Have ye fair daughters ? Look 

To see them live, torn from your arms, distained, 

Dishonored ; and if ye dare to call for justice, 

Be answered with the lash ! Yet this is Rome, 

That sat on her seven hills, and from her throne 

Of beauty ruled the world ! And we are Romans ! 

Why, in that elder day, to be a Roman 

Was greater than a king ! And once again, — 

Hear me, ye walls, that echoed to the tread 

Of either Brutus ! — once again, I swear, 

The Eternal City shall be free ! 



Man and Woman in Contrast — Wibt. 

Man stands before us in all his native dignity. He com- 
mands admiration by the boldness of his designs, the grandeur 
of his conceptions, the chivalry of his deeds, and the preemi- 
nence of his talents. He delights to figure in the world's eye, 
and to hear his praises rung by every tongue. He glories in 
the stormy agitations of life. His throne is tempest, and his 
state convulsion. He rules nations by a word, shakes kingdoms 
by his influence, overturns governments at his will, and destroys 
his fellow-man in the mere wantonness of power. Riding upon 
the whirlwind, he mocks the raging storm ; playing with the 
lightning, he hears unmoved the thunder's voice. The wings of 
time make for him music as they move ; and he forgets, too 
often, as he is wafted to eternity's brink, the dread realities of a 
" Goa in thunder, and a world on fire." Such are, generally, 
the aspirations of his mind, the employment of his life, and the 
consummation of his career. To be prepared for their strange 
vicissitudes, and to control with facility their wonderful muta- 
tions, man should be educated. 

Woman sits by her fireside, in the beauty of her charms, and 
in the worshiped graces of her loveliness. The nature of her 
duties, the care of her children, the laws of the land, and the 



110 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

usages of society, bind her to the home of her love. She de- 
lights to smooth the rough asperities of nature, to temper the 
burning heat of restless ambition, to check the adventurous spirit 
of daring heroism, and to sweeten, by the endearments of social 
intercourse, the passing hours of a brief existence. When the 
world is convulsed by the madness of ambition, and distracted 
by the vice and folly of legalized wickedness, she enlivens and 
purifies the domestic circle, by the affections and charities of a 
" well-ordered life and a blameless conversation." She watches, 
with maternal solicitude, the sportive tricks of helpless infancy ; 
listens to the sweet music of its voice ; exults in the endear ng 
playfulness of its smiles ; weeps at the melting accents of its 
cry ; and, as she rocks the little manly spirit to its repose, strikes 
the silver-toned notes of merry happiness, and enjoys again the 
dewy freshness of life's morning hour. 

In time's rapid flight, the days of childhood have passed, and 
the little prattler stands by his " mighty mother's " side, life's 
young pilgrim. With a deep sense of the responsibility of her 
trust, she molds his mind and forms his manners, directs his 
powers and regulates his conduct. In process of time, she 
unfolds the saving truths of his condition and danger, destination 
and immortality. She strikes the chord of deep-toned feeling, 
opens the fountains of sympathetic emotions, kindles the flame 
of virtuous ambition, points to the source of religious consola- 
tion, and, at last, sends forth the wanderer upon the world's 
wide theater, with a mother's love and a mother's blessing. To 
perform appropriately these high and delicate trusts, should not 
woman be educated ? 



Speech of Sempronius for War. — addisom 

My voice is still for war 
Gods ! can a Roman senate long debate 
Which of the two to choose — slavery or death ? 
No ; let us rise at once, gird on our swords, 
And at the head of our remaining troops 
Attack the foe, break through the thick array 
Of his thronged legions, and charge home upon him. 
Perhaps some arm, more lucky than the rest, 
May reach his heart, and free the world from bondage. 
Rise, fathers, rise ! 'tis Rome demands your help. 
Rise, and revenge her slaughtered citizens, 
Or share their fate. The corpse of half her senate 



SPEECH OF CATO. HI 

Manure the fields of Thessaly, while we 
Sit here, deliberating, in cold debates, 
If we should sacrifice our lives to honor, 
Or wear them out in servitude and chains. 
Rouse up, for shame ! our brothers of Pharsalia 
Point at their wounds, and cry aloud, " To battle ! ' 
Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow, 
And Scipio's ghost walks unrevenged amongst us ! 



Speech of Lucius for Peace, — Addison. 

My thoughts, I must confess, are turned on peace. 

Already have our quarrels filled the world 

With widows and with orphans. Scythia mourns 

Our guilty wars, and earth's remotest regions 

Lie half unpeopled by the feuds of Rome. 

'Tis time to sheathe the sword, and spare mankind. 

It is not Caesar, but the gods, my fathers ; 

The gods declare against us, and repel 

Our vain attempts. To urge the foe to battle 

(Prompted by blind revenge and wild despair) 

Were to refuse the awards of Providence, 

And not to rest in Heaven's determination. 

Already have we shown our love to Rome : 

Now let us show submission to the gods. 

We took up arms, not to revenge ourselves, 

But free the commonwealth : when this end fails, 

Arms have no further use ; — our country's cause, 

That drew our swords, now wrests them from our hands, 

And bids us not delight in Roman blood 

Unprofitably shed. What men could do 

Is done already : heaven and earth will witness, 

If Rome must fall, that we are innocent. 



Speech of Cato.— Addison. 

Let us appear nor rash nor diffident : 
Immoderate vaior swells into a fault ; 
And fear, admitted into public councils, 
Betrays, like treason. Let us shun them both. 



l\2 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Fathers, I cannot see that our affairs 

Are grown thus desperate : we have bulwarks round us 

Within our walls are troops inured to toil 

In Afric's heats, and seasoned to the sun : 

Numidia's spacious kingdom lies behind us, 

Ready to rise at its young prince's call. 

While there is hope, do not distrust the gods ; 

But wait, at least, till Caesar's near approach 

Force us to yield. 'Twill never be too late 

To sue for chains and own a conqueror. 

Why should Rome fall a moment ere her time ? 

No, let us draw her term of freedom out 

In its full length, and spin it to the last. 

So shall we gain still one day's liberty. 

And let me perish, but, in Cato's judgment, 

A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty 

Is worth a whole eternity in bondage. 



Political Conservatism. —William Brajnard Spencer* 

[The Jive articles which follow, in this connection, constitute the grad- 
uating speech of a young Louisianian of great promise. It dates from 
Centenary College of Louisiana, July, 1855, and has only been subjected 
to such change as was necessary to detach the several numbers.] 

The storms of war are gathering thick about us. The disso- 
nant thunder of artillery shakes the colossal monuments of 
classic Greece, portending a tempest which shall rock and con- 
vulse nations and empires to their centers. As men, as philan- 
tnropists, as members of a great and growing republic, it 
behooves us to pause, and consider, calmly and dispassionately, 
our condition. Like skillful mariners, whilst yet the storm 
thunders in the distance, let us sound the waters beneath us ; 
let us take our latitude and longitude, ascertain our true position, 
and determine our future course. If there be, in this vast 
assembly, one heart that beats warmly in the cause of humanity, 
one breast that feels the generous impulse of philanthropy, let 
that one — let all such — pause, ere he determines to act. Such 
is the policy wisdom would recommend, such the precaution 
prudence would suggest. 

We know that there are among us far-seeing individuals — 

* A nephew of General Caw. 



POLITICAL CONSERVATISM. 113 

would-be political seers, with sharper ken, perhaps, than is usu- 
ally possessed — who, whilst gazing far out into the dim distance 
of future ages — whilst watching the tide of empire, in its pro- 
spective ebb and flow — foresee advantages of stupendous magni- 
tude, of inconceivable importance, rising from the troubled 
waters of European politics, like Venus from the ocean spray ! 
We know, too, that there are those who might be called political 
astrologers ; whose telescopic eye, annihilating distance, and 
following, with mathematical accuracy, the tortuous peregrina- 
tions of the star of empire, as it mounts to its zenith, or sinks to 
its nadir, descries order, rising, like the sun, from the bosom of 
chaos ; wisdom, emerging from the gloomy folds of ignorance ; 
and equality, leaping, full-fledged and Minerva-like, from ine- 
quality and despotism of the deepest dye. But with these sooth- 
saying politicians, who seem gifted with prophetic vision, — who 
need only see an antecedent, a cause, and their capacious minds 
rest in a conclusion, without the aid of a reasoning process, (that 
feeble instrument of less gifted minds,) — with these we have 
nothing to do. 

Let us descend, then, from the lofty regions of prophecy to I 
the humbler teachings of common sense — to the dictations of 
groveling reason; which, if it affords us not so entrancing a/ 
panorama, will, at least in a majority of cases, give us a more 
solid foundation upon which to build our calculations. There 
are those who plainly discern, in the present struggle of Euro- 
pean nations, the dawn of civil and religious liberty — the advent 
and reign of the Prince of Peace ; and would fain persuade 
themselves, that, not far beyond the horizon of a trained eye, 
we might hail the glorious tints which herald the advent of the 
millennium, " when the lion and the lamb shall lie down togeth- 
er," — " when righteousness and peace shall kiss each other." 
If experience will warrant this conclusion, history has been read 
to little purpose. If reason and argument will sustain it, logic 
is deceptive, and the plainest principles without foundation. 

Who does not see, that, in the great struggles of the Napole- 
onic age, the fetters of despotism were riveted more firmly ? that 
they were strengthened and multiplied upon the nations by a 
twofold process ? Not only were the people impoverished, and 
their political importance diminished, but the reins of govern- 
ment, already drawn to the utmost tension, were grasped with a 
yet firmer hand, and wielded by a yet more iron will. Political 
power was usurped and consolidated by crowned heads. France, 
who struggled with the energy of a giant, fell prostrate before 
the storm, received new fetters of oppression, and bowed to a 
8 



114 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

yet heavier yoke of despotism. Even constitutional England 
felt that her liberties were impaired, and her rights infringed, by 
an accumulation of power in the hands of her executive. And 
does not all experience prove and testify that wars of this kind 
— wars not based upon an intelligent perception of the rights 
of the people — that they must necessarily and inevitably result 
in an accumulation and centralization of power in the hands of 
a few ? This is the invariable sequence. Then let us shun it, 
as we would the deadly shade of the Upas. 



The Same, continued. 

Reason guarantees the conclusion, that long and destructive 
wars must necessarily result in the moral, intellectual, and polit- 
ical prostration of the people, and in the utter mendicancy of 
nations. The great corner stones, upon which alone the temple 
of constitutional liberty can be erected and sustained, are intelli- 
gence and morality. And here we would ask, " How can a 
nation — how can the world — advance in the one or the other, 
whilst war's destructive blast breathes desolation over seas and 
continents, and shakes pestilence and famine from its dusky 
wings ? " War ! it is the fruitful mother of moral depravity, 
the charnel house of education, and the great school of military 
insubordination. It is the hideous monster who devours without 
benefit, and consumes without producing. Then cast hither 
your eyes, ye political seers, and tell us what benefits will 
accrue from these bloody conflicts of the east. 

The thunder of the cannon shakes the land ; nations stand 
marshaled " in all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war ; " 
whilst wan Famine, with a ghastly smile playing on her horrid 
features, shakes her emaciated finger at beggared nations and 
bankrupt governments. The great channels of commerce — 
those fountains of national prosperity — are clogged up with 
embargoes and blockades. Industry has laid aside the implements 
of peace — "the distaff and the loom" — to wield the battle-ax. 
And for what ? Are the nations, are the people, to be made 
more enlightened, more moral, or more free ? The idea is pre- 
posterous ! The liberty and happiness of the world must be 
wrought out by other and different means. 

What, then, is the3 grand object of these bloody struggles ? 
Why, if the truth were known, simply to cast new fetters for 
the people ; but, ostensibly, to maintain a metaphysical humbug 



POLITICAL CONSERVATISM. 115 

— "« balance of power" — that great hobby of scheming poli- 
ticians and political buccaneers, whereby the clock of the world, 
which has so long beat the march of progress, will go back a 
century. But we are told that this can not last ; that the people 
will eventually become tired of these things ; that the tyrants of 
Europe will be swept away on the blast of popular indignation ; 
that an exasperated people will rise up to take vengeance upon 
its oppressors. 

This may all be ; but what good will it effect ? Will the 
people — will the world — be benefited by these terrific convul- 
sions, these bloody paroxysms of rage ? How can they be ? 
You may goad the lion to desperation, but he can do nothing but 
devour ; he will tear down, but can not build up. Do present 
circumstances favor the moral and intellectual development of 
the masses ? Vain, indeed, is it to talk of independence with- 
out enlightenment — of liberty without intelligence. The people 
of Europe may cast aside the chains of a master, but they will 
be put into the stocks of a tyrant. 

If, then, such wholesale misery is to be entailed upon human- 
ity ; if kings and princes are to be mere bubbles, blown upon 
the political ocean by the popular breath — the mere ephemeral 
creations of an ignorant, frantic, and fanatic people, who are 
unwilling to support, but unable to throw off, the burdens of 
political oppression ; in a word, if they are to be flitting phan- 
tasms, which dance for a moment before the eye of distempered 
popular ignorance, — would it not be a safer and wiser policy 
even for the rulers of Europe to lay aside their family feuds 
and metaphysical balances, and yield to the spirit of the age, 
which is onward ? Is it not better to suffer in the hands of 
enlightened justice than to become the victim of Jacobin fury? 
Let them weigh well their own interests, and determine accu- 
rately their own situations, before they go farther. 



The Same, continued. 

England, that prince of nations, — England, whose hoarded 
wealth ought to surpass the wildest dreams of gold-dreaming 
alchymy, or the storied treasures of Ophir, — now stands, by her 
war policy, tottering on the brink of bankruptcy and revolution. 
A thousand millions of public debt, hanging like a deadly incubus 
about her ; a languishing industry ; an impeded commerce ; and, 
worse tnan all, a huge army of beggared soldiers threatening to 



116 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

sink her amid the storms of conflict ! The palmiest days of the 
English lion are evidently numbered in the past. 

And France, honored and beloved France — the desolating 
wars of a thousand years have not yet taught her wisdom. She 
has forgotten that the days of dragon's teeth are past, and that 
men no longer spring up, as by magic, ready armed and pano- 
plied for battle. A Utopian dreamer has usurped her liberties, 
and now sacrifices hecatombs of her brave sons on a foreign 
strand, in the vain hope of realizing the ambitious, exploded 
undertakings of a great but misguided predecessor. Let Louis 
Napoleon tremble. His dreams of conquest will be waked by 
the thunders of retribution. A breath made him a king ; a 
breath will make him a beggar and a criminal. Successful 
treason led him to a throne ; successful treason will lead him to 
a guillotine. The wrath of a deluded nation will burst, in fear- 
ful storms, upon his guilty head. 

If, then, these things be true of centralized, consolidated, 
monarchical governments, wielded by the energy of a single 
will, who can not foresee the evils which a war policy would 
inflict upon a country like our own ? War is not the element 
of a confederated government. There is not that unity of ac- 
tion, that secrecy of design, that celerity of movement, which 
alone insure success. But, in contravention of all this, we are 
told that America is a great country, and that the limits of her 
dominions should be commensurate with the extent of the globe ; 
that the sun, in time, will never rise upon her spacious bounds, 
nor set upon her illimitable empire. 

" Seas roll to waft me — suns to light me rise ; 
My footstool earth, my canopy the skies." 

But where is the common sense, or sound policy, in such Quix- 
otic ravings as this? 'Tis the idle dream of a distempered 
mind ; the vain bawble that elicits the applause of crazy fanati- 
cism ; an idea at once warring with common experience, tran- 
scending the bounds of ratienal credulity, and breaking down 
the restrictions which nature, God, and man have imposed for 
the common good. 



The Same, continued. 

It is indeed true that we are a great nation. The sun, in his 
lofty march, never shone upon a greater — nay, upon an equal. 
Based upon half a continent, she stands forth, the political Pharos 



POLITICAL CONSERVATISM. 117 

of the world ! The well-proportioned columns, the symmetrical 
structure of constitutional government, rear their lofty heads in 
proud sublimity, in solitary grandeur, above the western waves. 
Lofty mountains and wide-extended plains, inland seas and 
pilgrim streams, mark out her giant dimensions. We are proud 
of her ; we love her. But let us keep constantly in mind the 
important, the vital truth, that unity of feeling and identity of 
interest are the great fountains which alone can turn, with regu- 
larity and forever, the nicely-balanced wheels of a well-con- 
structed government. 

It is lamentable, but not less true, that self-interest wields the 
arm of the world, and is the mighty lever which moves and 
directs the actions and feelings of humanity. Climate and situ- 
ation change the characters and modify the interests of men. 
How, then, can you expect an assimilation in manners and cus- 
toms — a union — among adverse races, actuated by adverse 
motives, and led by adverse interests ? Away, then, with the 
gay delusion of universal empire ; away with this ultra, pseudo- 
progressive spirit of the nineteenth century ! Nature is consist- 
ent with herself, and defies the puny, paltry, insignificant efforts 
of man to contravene her eternal and immutable laws. 

There is a limit to this government, as well as to all others , 
and experience and prudence would suggest that we have well 
nigh attained that limit. Let us not draw down upon ourselves 
the bickering thunder-shafts of disunion, which have already 
swept, with such fearful violence, over our heads. Let us not 
nurse the storm, and cradle the hurricane, which is to demolish 
this colossal structure of republicanism. Let us not challenge 
the retributions of nature, by repeating the dangerous experi- 
ment of further extension. The great champions, who breasted 
the storm of 1850, are gone. Should the winds of civil conten- 
tion again blow their trumpets, to wreak their vengeance upon 
this happy and yet prosperous country, who will assure us that 
we shall find another Clay, Webster, or Calhoun, to speak peace 
to the raging elements, or pour oil upon the troubled waters ? 
Beware, then, lest, in grasping after the golden fruit of empire, 
you topple over the precipice of destruction. 

But they tell us, principle is principle, wherever it is found ; 
that like causes must produce like effects ; that the principles of 
self-government are as applicable to a world as to a province. 
But does this prove that the world, or half of it, can be united 
under one and the same line of policy — under one government ? 
The great law of gravitation is the same, not only the world 
over but extends to, pervades, and governs the stupendous 



118 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

mechanism of the universe, to the farthest nebula that hangs on 
the outskirts of creation. But this does not prove that its action 
in China may not be diametrically opposite to its action on this 
side of the globe. The policy of a country must vary with its 
circumstances, and with the character and condition of its inhab- 
itants. The policy which will suit one portion of the globe will 
not necessarily suit another. 

But we would not be understood as wishing to curtail the do- 
minions of civil and religious liberty. Far from it. We will 
go as far as the farthest in wishing them God-speed and victory. 
We would hail the day when the banners of republicanism 
should be planted upon the poles of the globe : when the glad 
acclaim of redeemed millions, swelling above the roar of the 
ocean and the hoarse thunder of the storm, should proclaim 
from experience, " Liberty is priceless ; liberty is priceless ! " 
We only suggest the expediency of limiting ourselves to proper 
bounds, and of ceasing to grasp after new territorial acquisitions, 
in defiance of the plainest principles of prudence. 



The Same, concluded. 

We are already rich in territory. The American eagle, 
planting one foot upon the Alleghanies, and the other upon the 
Rocky Mountains, stretches his broad pinions over half a conti- 
nent. What need we more ? Let us cease, then, to dream of 
conquest, save by the force of example. Let us adopt, as the 
inviolable rule of action, that great international code — that 
symmetrical structure, which has been built upon the wreck of 
ages. Let us act upon its broad and immutable principles, yield 
what it demands, and grasp with a firm hand what it gives. 
Fight for justice, not for empire, if fight we must. 

We repeat, again, that the character of this government is 
not suited to military operations. It is not sufficiently central- 
ized to insure success. Let us welcome, then, the rich smile of 
Ceres ; but shun, if we are able, the destructive frowns of Mars. 
But, aside from all this, even if victory, in every struggle^ 
should perch upon our standard — if the treasures of van- 
quished nations should be poured out at the feet of our triumph- 
ant armies — "'twould be but a losing game.'" Beware of 
standing armies and victorious generals; beware of military 
insubordination, that bane of all republics. Our liberties may 
be prostrated beneath the feet of military greatness and military 



POLITICAL CONSERVATISM. 119 

licentiousness. The heel of a conqueror may be planted upon 
the constitution. 

Does this provoke a smile .- The stern Roman, too, would 
have laughed to scorn the idea of a victorious Caesar trampling 
down the sacred prerogatives of Roman citizens. But would 
Americans propagate the inestimable blessings of republican- 
ism ? Would they behold the world basking beneath the genial 
influences of justice and equality ? Then let them cease to 
dream of proselyting the world by sword argument and gm> 
powder logic. War will neither give intelligence nor morality, 
peace nor prosperity ; and these alone are the Titan energies 
which must work out the deliverance of the political world. 

America must be an instructor, not an avenger ; the great 
missionary of nations, ministering to the sorrowing millions of 
humanity, like an angel of mercy — proclaiming " peace on 
earth, and good will to men." Let her be the great political 
sun in the heavens, whose benign, resplendent, and powerful 
rays shall warm into life, and stimulate into action, the germi- 
nating elements of political reformation, and wake from his 
embryo sleep the young giant of republicanism. But this can 
not be effected while somber war clouds float over and obscure 
her radiant and burning disk. 

Then let us away with this crusading, all-grasping spirit, 
which prompts and directs the delusive and frantic dreams of 
young America, whose patriotic rapacity vainly expects to build 
up and sustain constitutional government upon the wreck of na- 
tional honor and upon the dissolution of national unity. Let us 
listen no longer to his siren songs of dominion, nor taste his 
Circean cup of conquest. Let us close our ears to his " sono- 
rous metal, blowing martial sounds," and leave the young hero 
to pipe out his war strains in merited oblivion. Then there will 
be heard no discordant note from the harp of republicanism, 
touched in unison by thirty-two sister planets, rolling in grand 
perspective, like the mighty landmarks of God, in the great orbit 
prescribed by the constitution. No constituent member will be 
without the " sphere of influence." Unity of interest, unity of 
thought, and unity of feeling will be the great laws of gravita 
tion, which bind and sustain in one harmonious whole the grea 
planets and suns of this governmental system. 



120 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Unfounded Prejudices ; or, Aversion subdued. 

AlKIN. 

Belford. Pray, who is the present possessor of the Brookby 
estate ? 

Arbury. A man of the name of Goodwin. 

Bel. Is he a good neighbor to you ? 

Arb. Far from it ; and I wish he had settled a hundred miles 
off, rather than come here to spoil our neighborhood. 

Bel. I am sorry to hear that. But what is your objection to 
him ? 

Arb. O, there is nothing in which we agree. In the first 
place, he is quite of the other side in politics; and that, you 
know, is enough to prevent all intimacy. 

Bel. I am not entirely of that opinion. But what else ? 

Arb. He is no sportsman, and refuses to join in our associa- 
tion for protecting the game. Neither does he choose to be a 
member of any of our clubs. 

Bel. Has he been asked ? 

Arb. I do not know that he has, directly ; but he might 
easily propose himself, if he liked it. But he is of a close, un- 
sociable temper, and, I believe, very niggardly. 

Bel. How has he shown it ? 

Arb. His style of living is not equal to his fortune, and 1 
have heard of several instances of his attention to petty economy. 

Bel. Perhaps he spends his money in charity. 

Arb. Not he, I dare say. It was but last week that a poor 
fellow, who had lost his all by a fire, went to him with a sub- 
scription paper, in which were the names of all the gentlemen 
in the neighborhood ; and the only answer he received was, that 
he would consider of it. 

Bel. And did he consider ? 

Arb. I do not know, but I suppose it was only an excuse. 
Then his predecessor had a park well stocked with deer, and 
used to make liberal presents of venison to all his neighbors. 
But this frugal gentleman has sold them all off, and keeps a 
flock of sheep instead of them. 

Bel. I do not see much harm in that, now mutton is so dear. 

Arb. To be sure, he has a right to do as he pleases with his 
park ; but that is not the way to be beloved, you know. As to 
myself, I have reason to think he bears me particular ill will. 

Bel. Then he is much in the wrong ; for I presume you are 
as free from ill will to others as any man living. But how has 
he shown it, pray ? 



JNFOUNBED PREJUDICES. 12* 

Arb. In twenty instances. He had a horse upon sale, the 
other dxy, to which I took a liking, and bid money for it. As 
soon as he found I wanted it, he sent it off to a fair, in another 
part of the country. My wife, you know, is passionately fond 
of cultivating flowers. Riding lately by his grounds, she ob- 
served something new, and took a great longing for a root or 
cutting of it. My gardener mentioned her wish to his, (con- 
trary, I own, to my inclination,) and he told his master ; but, 
instead of obliging her, he charged the gardener on no account 
to touch the plant. A little while ago, I turned off a man for 
saucy behavior ; but, as he had lived many years with me, and 
was a very useful servant, I meant to take him again, upon his 
submission, which 1 did not doubt would soon happen. Instead 
of that, he goes and offers himself to my civil neighbor, who, 
without deigning to apply to me even for a character, engages 
him immediately. In short, he has not the least of a gentleman 
about him, and I would give any thing to be well rid of him. 

Bel. Nothing, to be sure, can be more unpleasant, in the 
country, than a bad neighbor, and I am concerned it is your lot 
to have one. But there is a man who seems as if he wanted to 
speak with you. 

(A countryman approaches.) 

Arb. Ah ! it is the poor fellow that was burned out. Well 
Richard, how do you succeed ? What has the subscription pro- 
duced you ? 

Richard. Thank your honor — my losses are nearly all 
made up. 

Arb. I am very glad of that ; but, when I saw the paper 
last, it did not reach half way. 

Rich. It did not, sir ; but you may remember asking me 
what Mr. Goodwin had done for me, and I told you he took time 
to consider of it. Well, sir, I found that, the very next day, he 
had been at our town, and had made very particular inquiry 
about me and my losses, among my neighbors. When I called 
upon him, a few days after, he told me he was very glad to find 
that I bore such a good character, and that the gentlemen round 
had so kindly taken up my case ; and he would prevent the ne- 
cessity of my going any farther for relief. Upon which he gave 
me — God bless him ! — a draft upon his banker for two hun- 
dred dollars. 

Arb. Two hundred dollars ! 

Rich. Yes, sir. It has made me quite my own man again, 
and I am now going to purchase a new cart and team of horses 

Arb. A noble g ft, indeed T could never have thought it. 



122 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Well, Richard, I rejoice at your good fortune. I am sure you 
are much obliged to Mr. Goodwin. 

Rich. Indeed I am, sir, and to all my good friends. God 
bless you, sir. (Exit.) 

Bel. Niggardliness, at leist, is not this man's foible. 

Arb. No. I was mistaken in that point. I wronged him, 
and I am sorry for it. But what a pity it is that men of real 
generosity should not be amiable in their manners, and as ready 
to oblige in trifles as in matters of consequence ! 

Bel. True, it is a pity, when that is really the case. 

Arb. How much less an exertion it would have been to have 
shown some civility about a horse or a flower root ! 

Bel. Speaking of flowers, there is your gardener coming, 
with a large one in a pot. 

(Enter Gardener.) 

Arb. Now, James, what have you there ? 

Gardener. A flower, sir, for madam, from Mr. Goodwin's. 

Arb. How did you come by it ? 

Gard. His gardener, sir, sent me word to come for it. We 
should have had it before, but Mr. Goodwin thought it could not 
be moved safely. 

Arb. I hope he has more of them. 

Gard. He has only a seedling plant or two, sir ; but, hear- 
ing that madam took a liking to this, he was resolved to send it 
to her ; and a choice thing it is. I have a note for madam in 
my pocket. 

Arb. Well, take it home. (Exit Gardener.) 

Bel. Methinks this does not look like deficiency in civility. 

Arb. No ; it is a very polite action ; I cannot deny it, and I 
am obliged to him for it. Perhaps, indeed, he may feel he owes 
me a little amends. 

Bel. Possibly. It shows he can feel, most certainly. 

Arb. It does. Ha ! there is Yorkshire Tom coming from 
the fair. I will step up, and speak to him. Well, Tom, how 
have horses gone at Market Hill ? 

Tom. Dear enough, your honor. 

Arb. How much more did you get for Mr. Goodwin's mare 
than I offered him ? 

Tom. Ah, sir, that was not an animal for your riding, and 
Mr. Goodwin well knew it. You never saw such a vicious crea- 
ture. She liked to have killed the groom, two or three times. 
So I was ordered to offer her to the mail coach people, and get 
what I could from them. I might have sold her to better advan- 
tage, if Mr. Goodwin would have let me ; for she wan as fine a 
creature to look at as need be, and quite sound. 



UNFOUNDED PREJUDICES. 123 

Arb. And was that the true reason, Tom, why the mare was 
not sold to me ? 

Tom. It was, indeed, sir. 

Arb. Then I am highly obliged to Mr. Goodwin. (Tom 
goes.) This was handsome behavior, indeed ! 

Bel. Yes, I think it was somewhat more than politeness : it 
was real goodness of heart. 

Arb. It was. I find I must alter my opinion of him, and J 
do it with pleasure. But, after all, his conduct with respect to 
my servant is somewhat unaccountable. 

Bel. I see reason to think so well of him in relation to most 
transactions, that I am inclined to hope he will be acquitted in 
this matter, too. 

Arb. There comes Ned now ; I wonder that he has my old 
ivery on yet. 

(Ned approaches, pulling off his hat.) 

Ned. Sir, I was coming to your honor to 

Arb. What can you have to say to me now, Ned ? 

Ned. To ask pardon, sir, for my misbehavior, and beg you 
to take me again. 

Arb. What, have you so soon parted with your new master ? 

Ned. Mr. Goodwin never was my master, sir. He only kept 
me in his house till I could make up with you again ; for he said 
he was sure you were too honorable a gentleman to turn off an 
old servant, without good reason, and he hoped you would admit 
my excuses after your anger was over. 

Arb. Did he say all that ? 

Ned. Yes, sir ; and he advised me not to delay any longer 
asking your pardon. 

Arb. Well, go to my house, and I will talk with you on my 
return. 

Bel. Now, my friend, what think you of this ? 

Arb. I think more than I can well express. It will be a les- 
son to me never to make hasty judgments again. 

Bel. Why, indeed, to have concluded that such a man had 
nothing of the gentleman about him, must have been rather 
hasty. 

Arb. I acknowledge it. But it is the misfortune of these 
reserved characters, that they are so long in making themselves 
known ; though, when they are known, they often prove the 
most t~uly estimable. I am afraid, even now, that I must be 
content with esteeming him at a distance. 

Bel. Why so ? 

Arb, You know I am of an open, sociable disposition. 



124 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Bel. Perhaps he is so, too. 

Arb. If he was, surely we should have been better acquaint 
ed before this time. 

Bel. It may have been prejudice, rather than temper, tha 
has kept you asunder. 

Arb. Possibly so. That vile spirit of party has such a sway 
in the country, that men of the most liberal dispositions can 
hardly free themselves from its influence. It poisons all the 
kindness of society ; and yonder comes an instance of its perni- 
cious effects. 

Bel. Who is he ? 

Arb. A poor schoolmaster, with a large family, in the next 
market town, who has lost all his scholars by his activity on our 
side in the last election. I heartily wish it was in my power to 
do something for him ; for he is a very honest man, though per- 
haps rather too ardent. 

{The schoolmaster comes up.) 

Arb. Well, Mr. Penman, how go things with you ? 

Penman. I thank you, sir, they have gone poorly enough, 
but I hope they are in the way to mend. 

Arb. I am glad to hear it ; but how ? 

Pen. Why, sir, the free school of Stoke is vacant, and 1 be- 
lieve I am likely to get it. 

Arb. Ah ! I wonder at that. I thought it was in the hands 
of the other party. 

Pen. It is, sir; but Mr. Goodwin has been so kind as tc 
give me a recommendation, and his interest is sufficient to 
carry it. 

Arb. Mr. Goodwin ! you surprise me. 

Pen. I was much surprised, too, sir. He sent for me of his 
own accord, (for I should never have thought of asking a favor 
from him,) and told me he was sorry a man should be injured in 
his profession on account of party ; and, as I could not live com- 
fortably where I was, he would try to settle me in a better place. 
So he mentioned the vacancy of Stoke, and offered me letters to 
the trustees. I was never so affected in my life, sir. I could 
hardly speak to return him thanks. He kept me to dinner, and 
treated me with the greatest respect. Indeed, I believe there i 6 
not a kinder man breathing than Mr. Goodwin. 

Arb. You have the best reason in the world for saying so, 
Mr. Penman. What, did he converse familiarly with you ? 

Pen. Quite so, sir. We talked a great deal about party af- 
fairs m this neighborhood ; and he lamented much that differ- 
ences of this kind should keep worthy men at a distance from 



RESISTANCE TO OPPRESSION. 125 

each other. I took the liberty, sir, of mentioning your name. 
He said he had not the honor of being acquainted with you, but 
that he had a sincere esteem for your character, and should bfi 
glad of any occasion to cultivate a friendship with you. For mv 
part, I confess, to my shame, I did not think there could have 
been such a man on that side. 

Arb. Well, good morning. 

Pen. Your most obedient, sir. {He goes.) 

Arb. {After some silence.) Come, my friend, let us go. 

Bel. Whither? 

Arb. Can you doubt ? To Mr. Goodwin's, to be sure. Af- 
ter all that I have heard, can I exist a moment without acknowl- 
edging the injustice I have done him, and soliciting his friend- 
ship ? 

Bel. I shall be happy, I am sure, to accompany you on that 
errand. But who is to introduce us ? 

Arb. What is form and ceremony in a case like this ? Come 
come. 

Bel. Most willingly. 



Resistance to Oppression in its Rudiments, 

Daniel Websteb. 

Every encroachment, great or small, is important enough to 
awaken the attention of those who are intrusted with the preser- 
vation of a constitutional government. We are not to wait till 
great public mischiefs come, till the government is overthrown, 
or liberty itself put in extreme jeopardy. We should not be 
worthy sons of our fathers, were we so to regard great ques- 
tions, affecting the general freedom. Those fathers accomplished 
the revolution on a strict question of principle. The Parliament 
of Great Britain asserted a right to tax the colonies in all cases 
whatsoever ; and it was precisely on this question that they made 
the revolution turn. The amount of taxation was trifling, but 
the claim itself was inconsistent with liberty ; and that was, in 
their eyes, enough. It was against the recital of an act of Par- 
liament, rather than against any suffering under its enactments, 
that they took up arms. 

They went to war against a preamble. They fought seven 
years against a declaration. They poured out their treasures 
and their blood, like water, in a contest in opposition to an as- 
sertion, which those less sagacious, and not so well schooled io 



126 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

the principles of civil liberty, would have regarded as barren 
phraseology, or mere parade of words. They saw in the claim 
of the British Parliament a seminal principle of mischief, the 
germ of unjust power ; they detected it, dragged it forth from 
underneath its plausible disguises, struck at it ; nor did it elude 
either their steady eye, or their well-directed blow, till they had 
extirpated and destroyed it, to the smallest fibre. On this ques- 
tion of principle, while actual suffering was yet afar off, they 
raised their flag against a power to which, for purposes of for- 
eign conquest and subjugation, Rome, in the height of her glory, 
is not to be compared ; a power which has dotted over the sur- 
face of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts ; 
whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping 
company with the hours, circles the earth daily with one con- 
tinuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England. 



The hong Ago, — anon. 

[It requires not especially " sentiment " to appreciate the lines which 
ensue. Feeling, deep, true feeling, is their characteristic ; and they who 
look upon the loved and lost, who have gone before, will feel them in 
their " heart of hearts"] 

O, a wonderful stream is the river Time, 
As it runs through the realms of tears, 
With a faultless rhythm, and a musical rhyme, 
And a broader sweep, and a surge sublime, 
And blends with the ocean of years. 

How the winters are drifting like flakes of snow, 

And the summers like buds between, 
And the year in the sheaf — so they come and go 
On the river's breast, with its ebb and flow, 

As it glides in the shadow and sheen. 

There's a magical isle up the river Time, 

Where the softest of airs are playing ; 
There's a cloudless sky, and a tropical clime, 
And a song as sweet as a vesper chime, 

And the Junes with the roses are staying. 

And the name of this isle is the Long Ago, 
And we bury our treasures there ; 



ERUPTION OF COSAGUINA, 127 

There are brows of beauty, and bosoms of snow — 
There are heaps of dust, but we love them so ! — 
There are trinkets and tresses of hair. 

There are fragments of song that nobody sings, 

And a part of an infant's prayer ; 
There's a lute unswept and a harp without strings , 
There are broken vows and pieces of rings, 

And the garments that she used to wear. 

There are hands that are waved when the fairy shore 

By the mirage is lifted in air ; 
And we sometimes hear, through the turbulent roar, 
Sweet voices we heard in the days gone before, 

When the wind down the river is fair. 

O, remembered for aye be the blessed isle, 

All the day of life till night. 
When the evening comes, with its beautiful smile, 
And our eyes are closing to slumber a while, 

May that " greenwood " of soul be in sight. 



Eruption of the Volcano of Cosaguina, 

John L. Stephens. 

Following the coast, at eleven o'clock we were opposite the 
volcano of Cosaguina, a long, dark mountain range, with another 
ridge running below it, and then an extensive plain, covered with 
lava to the sea. The wind headed us, and, in order to weather 
the point of headland from which we could lay our course, the 
boatmen got into the water to tow the bungo. I followed them, 
and, with a broad-brimmed straw hat to protect me from the 
sun, I found the water was delightful. Unable, however, to 
weather the point, at half past one we came to anchor, and very 
soon nearly every man on board was asleep. 

Before me was the volcano of Cosaguina, with its field of 
lava and its desolate shore, and not a living being was in sight 
except my sleeping boatmen. Five years before, on the shores 
of the Mediterranean, and at the foot of Mount Etna, I read in 
a newspaper an account of the eruption of this volcano. Little 
did I then ever expect to see it ; the most awful in the history of 
volcanic eruptiois, the noise of which startled the people of 



128 JlOSb'S SPEAKER. 

Guatiinala, four hundred miles off, and at Kingston, Jamaica, 
eight hundred miles distant, was supposed to be signal guns of 
distress from some vessel at sea. 

The face of nature was changed ; the cone of the volcano was 
gone ; a mountain and field of lava ran down to the sea ; a for- 
est old as creation had entirely disappeared, and two islands 
were formed in the sea ; shoals were discovered, in one of which 
a large tree was fixed upside down ; one river was completely 
choked up, and another formed, running in an opposite direction 
seven men, in the employ of my bungo proprietor, ran down to 
the water, pushed off in a bungo, and were never heard of 
more; wild beasts, howling, left their caves in the mountains, 
and ounces, leopards, and snakes fled for shelter to the abodes 
of men. 

Mr. Savage, the American consul, was on that day on the side 
of the volcano of San Miguel, distant one hundred and twenty 
miles. At eight o'clock he saw a dense cloud rising in the south 
in a pyramidal form, and heard a noise which sounded like the 
roaring of the sea. Very soon the thick clouds were lighted up 
by vivid flashes, rose-colored and forked, shooting and disap- 
pearing, which he supposed to be some electrical phenomenon. 
These appearances increased so fast, that the men whom he had 
in his employ became exceedingly frightened, believing, as they 
said, that the end of the world was approaching. Very soon he 
himself was satisfied that it was the eruption of a volcano ; and 
as Cosaguina was at that time a quiet mountain, not suspected to 
contain subterraneous fires, he supposed it to proceed from the 
volcano of Tigris. 

He returned to the town of San Miguel, which, as he entered 
it, felt, in quick succession, several severe shocks of earthquake. 
The inhabitants were distracted with terror. Birds flew wildly 
through the streets, and, blinded by the dust, fell dead on the 
ground. At four o'clock, it was so dark, that, as Mr. Savage 
says, he held up his hand before his eyes, and could not see it. 
Nobody moved without a candle, which gave a dim and misty 
light, extending only a few feet. 

At this time the church was full, and could not contain half 
4f\io wished to enter. The figure of the Virgin was brought out 
into the plaza, and borne through the streets, followed by the in- 
habitants, with candles and torches, in penitential procession 
crying upon the Lord to pardon their sins ; bells tolled ; and 
during the procession there was another earthquake, so violent 
and long that it thrc w to the ground many people walking in the 
procession. The darkness continued till eleven o'clock the n«xt 



TO THE EAGLE. ^ 

day, when the sun was partially visible, but dim and hazy, and 
without any brightness. The dust on the ground was four inches 
thick ; the branches of trees broke with its weight, and people 
were so disfigured by it that they could not be recognized. 

At this time Mr. Savage set out for his hacienda at Zonzonate. 
He slept at the first village, and, at two or three o'clock in the 
morning, was roused by a report like the breaking of most ter- 
rific thunder, or the firing of thousands of cannon. This was 
the report which startled the people of Guatimala, when the 
commandant sallied out, supposing that the quartel was attacked 
and which was heard at Kingston in Jamaica. 



To the Eagle.— Pbbcival. 

Bird of the broad and sweeping wing, 

Thy home is high in heaven, 
Where wide the storms their banners fling, 

And the tempest clouds are driven. 
Thy throne is on the mountain top ; 

Thy fields, the boundless air ; 
And hoary peaks, that proudly prop 

The skies, thy dwellings are. 

Lord of the boundless realm of air, 

In thy imperial name 
The hearts of the bold and ardent dare 

The dangerous path of fame, 
jfieneath the shade of thy golden wings, 

The Roman legions bore, 
From the river of Egypt's cloudy springs, 

Their pride, to the polar shore. 

For thee they fought, for thee they fell, 

And their oath was on thee laid ; 
To thee the clarions raised their swell, 

And the dying warrior prayed. 
Thou wert, through an age of death and feara 

The image of pride and power, 
Till the gathered rage of a thousand years 

Burst forth in one awful hour. 
9 



30 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

And then, a deluge of wrath it came, 

And the nations shook with dread ; 
And it swept the earth, till its fields were flame* 

And piled with the mingled dead. 
Kings were rolled in the wasteful flood 

With the low and crouching slave, 
And together lay, in a shroud of blood, 

The coward and the brave. 

And where was then thy fearless flight ? 

" O'er the dark, mysterious sea, 
To the lands that caught the setting light, 

The cradle of Liberty. 
There, on the silent and lonely shore, 

For ages, I watched alone ; 
And the world, in its darkness, asked no more 

Where the glorious bird had flown. 

" But then came a bold and hardy few, 

And they breasted the unknown wave ; 
I caught afar the wandering crew, 

And I knew they were high and brave. 
I wheeled around the welcome bark, 

As it sought the desolate shore ; 
And up to heaven, like a joyous lark, 

My quivering pinions bore. 

" And now that bold and hardy few 

Are a nation wide and strong ; 
And danger and doubt I have led them through, 

And they worship me in song ; 
And over their bright and glancing arms, 

On field, and lake, and sea, 
With an eye that fires, and a spell that charms, 

I guide them to victory." 



Bonaparte. — E. a. Nmbbt. 

From an island of the middle sea came the man of destiny. 
No title graced his name, no heraldic insignia emblazoned his 
shield. Age had scarce marked him with the impress of ma- 
turity, yst in his heart fluttered the high hopes, and around his 



ON RETURNING TO THE UNITED STATES. 13 

soul circled the daring resolves of unparalleled genius. With 
his mind and his good sword the means, and glory his end, he 
headed the soldiery. He bade the boiling caldron of popular 
licentiousness to cease its bubblings, and it yielded to his incan- 
tations. He seized on power as his guerdon, and victory was 
his familiar spirit. The antiquated tactics of the continent dis- 
solved before the energy of the conqueror, like frostwork before 
the sun of the tropics ; nor alpine hights, nor swollen streams, 
nor veteran hosts, nor time, nor space, could limit his career. 
In his ire he scourged the nations, and in liis complacency he 
hushed their mournings ; around him he scattered, as if in very 
wantonness, scepters, crowns, and diadems, and kingdoms were 
to him but holiday souvenirs. 

Onward was his watchword, and onward he marched, over 
fallen thrones, and vanquished realms, and prostrate systems. 
On the field of Waterloo went down the star of the lord para- 
mount of Europe ; in gloom, 'tis true, yet still in glory ; and we 
must yet doubt whether it was most conspicuous in the blaze of 
its ascendant, or the beauty of its Occident. His name attained 
to an elevation of sublimer altitude than any that is known to the 
registry of fame. For him history has no peers, and futurity 
no oblivion. If mind and its development in action is the test 
of greatness, then was Napoleon surpassingly great. He was 
the instrument of good, and Europe may long bless his advent ; 
yet Azrael himself is not a more fell destroyer than was Bona- 
parte. He was the minister of misery, and the great high priest 
of suffering. 



Emotions on returning to the United States. 
LhoabA, 

Sir, I dare not trust myself to speak of my country with the 
rapture which I habitually feel when I contemplate her marvel- 
ous history. But this I will say, that, on my return to it, after 
an absence of only four years, I was rilled with wonder at all 1 
saw and all I heard. What is to be compared with it ? I found 
New York grown up to almost double its former size, with the 
air of a great capital instead of a mere flourishing commercial 
town, as I had known it. I listened to accounts of voyages of a 
thousand miles, in magnificent steamboats, on the waters of those 
great lakes, which, but the other day, I left sleeping in the prime- 
val silence of nature, in the recesses of a vast wilderness ; and 
I felt t^at there are a grandeur and a majesty in this irresistib'o 



]J2 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

onward march of a race — created, as I believe, and elected, to 
possess and people a continent — which belong to few other ob- 
jects, either of the moral or material world. 

We may become so much accustomed to such things, that they 
shall make as little impression upon our minds as the glories of 
the heavens above us ; but, looking on them lately a? with the eye 
of the stranger, I felt, what a recent English traveler is said to 
have remarked, that, far from being without poetry, as some 
have vainly alleged, our whole country is one great poem. Sir, 
it is so ; and if there be a man that can think of what is doing, 
.n all parts of this most blessed of all lands, to embellish and 
advance it — who can contemplate that living mass of intelli- 
gence, activity, and improvement, as it rolls on in its sure and 
steady progress to the uttermost extremities of the west — who 
can see scenes of savage desolation transformed, almost with the 
suddenness of enchantment, into those of fruitfulness and beauty, 
crowned with nourishing cities filled with the noblest of all pop- 
ulations — if there be a man, I say, that can witness all this 
passing under his very eyes, without feeling his heart beat high 
and his imagination warmed and transported by it, be sure, sir, 
that the raptures of song exist not for him ; he would listen in 
vain to Tasso or Camoens, telling a tale of the wars of knights 
and crusaders, or of the discovery and conquest of another 
hemisphere. 



William Tell on Switzerland. — J. s. Knowles. 

Once Switzerland was free. With what a pride 
I used to walk these hills, look up to heaven, 
And bless God that it was so ! It was free 
From end to end ; from cliff to lake 'twas free. 
Free as our torrents are, that leap our rocks 
And plow our valleys without asking leave ; 
Or as our peaks, that wear their caps of snow 
In very presence of the regal sun. 
How happy was I in it then ! I loved 
Its very storms. Ay, often have I sat 
In my boat at night, when, midway o'er the lake, 
The stars went out, and down the mountain gorge 
The wind came roaring — I have sat and eyed 
The thunder breaking from his cloud, and smiled 
To see him shake his lightnings o'er my head, 
And think I had no master save his own. 



IN FAVOR OF PROSECUTING THE WAR. 133 

You know the jutting cliff, round which a track 
Up hither winds, whose base is but the brow 
To such another one, with scanty room 
For two abreast to pass ? O'ertaken there 
By the mountain blast, I've laid me flat along, 
And while gust followed gust more furiously, 
As if to sweep me o'er the horrid brink, 
And I have thought of other lands, whose storms 
Are summer flaws to those of mine, and just 
Have wished me there — the thought that mine was free 
Has checked that wish ; and I have raised my head, 
And cried in thralldom to that furious wind, 
" Blow on ! This is the land of liberty." 



In Favor of prosecuting the War. 

Henry Clax 

When the administration was striving, by the operation ol 
peaceful measures, to bring Great Britain back to a sense of 
justice, the gentlemen of the opposition were for old-fashioned 
war. And, now they have got old-fashioned war, their sensibili- 
ties are cruelly shocked, and all their sympathies lavished upon 
the harmless inhabitants of the adjoining provinces. What does 
a state of war present? The united energies of one people 
arrayed against the combined energies of another ; a conflict in 
which each party aims to inflict all the injury it can, by sea and 
land, upon the territories, property, and citizens of the other, 
subject only to the rules of mitigated war practiced by civilized 
nations. The gentlemen would not touch the continental prov- 
inces of the enemy, nor, I presume, for the same reason, her 
possessions in the West Indies. The same humane spirit would 
spare the seamen and soldiers of the enemy. The sacred per- 
son of his majesty must not be attacked, for the learned gentle- 
men on the other side are quite familiar with the maxim that the 
king can do no wrong. Indeed, sir, I know of no person on 
whom we may make war, upon the principles of" the honorable 
gentlemen, but Mr. Stephen, the celebrated author of the orders 
in council, or the board of admiralty, who authorize and regulate 
the practice of impressment. 

The disasters of the war admonish us, we are told, of the ne- 
cessity of terminating the contest. If our achievements by land 
Wave been less splendid than those of our intrepid seamen by 



134 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

water, it is not because the American soldier is less brave. On 
tne one element, organization, discipline, and a thorough knowl- 
edge of their duties exist on the part of the officers and their 
men. On the other, almost every thing is yet to be acquired. 
We have, however, the consolation that our country abounds 
with the richest materials, and that in no instance, when engaged 
in action, have our arms been tarnished. 

An honorable peace is attainable only by an efficient war. 
My plan would be, to call out the ample resources of the coun- 
try, give them a judicious direction, prosecute the war with the 
utmost vigor, strike wherever we can reach the enemy, at sea or 
on land, and negotiate the terms of a peace at Quebec or at 
Halifax. We are told that England is a proud and lofty nation, 
which, disdaining to wait for danger, meets it half way. Haugh- 
ty as she is, we once triumphed over her ; and, if we do not, 
listen to the counsels of timidity and despair, we shall again 
prevail. In such a cause, with the aid of Providence, we must 
come out crowned with success ; but, if we fail, let us fail like 
men — lash ourselves to our gallant tars, and expire together in 
one common struggle, fighting for free trade and seamen's 

RIGHTS. 



The American 2<7!ag\— New Okleans Cbbsobht. 

Fling out the nation's stripes and stars, 

The glorious standard of the free, 
The banner borne through freedom's wars, 

The hallowed gem of liberty. 
On mountain top, in valley deep, 

Wherever dwell the free and brave, 
O'er graves where freedom's martyrs sleep, 

Columbia's flag must freely wave. 

Raise high the bright, auspicious flag, 

From every hight and lowly glen, 
In forest dell, on jutting crag, 

Afar among the hearts of men. 
The sparkling banner, widely flung 

Shall proudly wave o'er land and sea; , 
And freedom's anthem, sweetly sung, 

Shall swell our country's jubilee. 

O, let the world that flag behold, 
The emblem of the brave and free 



DEFENCE OF JEFFERSON. 135 

The brightest crown of streaming gold 

That decks the goddess Liberty. 
Spread out its folds, till heaven's dome 

Reverberates the holy sound, 
That all oppressed have found a home 

On freedom's consecrated ground. 

Fling out our country's banner wide, 

Our emblematic starry gem ; 
Our Union never shall divide, 

While floats that silken diadem. 
Year after year the brilliant stars 

Shall indicate the strength of all ; 
Let all beware of civil wars, 

That curse of monarchs, freedom's fall. 



Defence of Jefferson. — Henkt Clay, 

Next to the notice which the opposition has found itself called 
upon to bestow upon the French emperor, a distinguished citizen 
of Virginia, formerly President of the United States, has never 
for a moment failed to receive their kindest and most respectful 
attention. An honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, of whom 
I am sorry to say it becomes necessary for me, in the course of 
my remarks, to take some notice, has alluded to him in a remark- 
able manner. Neither his retirement from public office, his 
eminent services, nor his advanced age, can exempt this patriot 
from the coarse assaults of party malevolence. No, sir. In 
1801 he snatched from the rude hand of usurpation the violated 
constitution of his country, and that is his crime. He preserved 
that instrument, in form, and substance, and spirit, a precious 
inheritance for generations to come ; and for this he can never 
be forgiven. How vain and impotent is party rage, directed 
against such a man ! He is not more elevated by his lofty resi- 
dence upon the summit of his own favorite mountain, than he is 
lifted, by the serenity of his mind and the consciousness of a 
well-spent life, above the malignant passions and bitter feelings 
if the day. No ; his own beloved Monticello is not less moved 
by the storms that beat against its sides, than is this illustrious 
man by the howlings of the whole British pack let loose from 
iie Essex kennel. When the gentleman to whom I have been 
compelled to allude shall he re mingled his dust with that of his 



,36 KOSS'S SPEAKEK. 

abused ancestors — when he shall have been consigned to obliv - 
ion, or, if he lives at all, shall live only in the treasonable annals 
of a certain junto — the name of Jefferson will be hailed with 
gratitude, his memory honored and cherished as the second 
founder of the liberties of the people, and the period of his ad- 
ministration will be looked back to as one of the happiest and 
brightest epochs of American history. 



The Noblest Public Virtue, — henry Clay, 

There is a sort of courage, which, I frankly confess it, I do 
not possess ; a boldness to which I dare not aspire ; a valor which 
I can not covet. I can not lay myself down in the way of the 
welfare and happiness of my country. That I can not, I have 
not the courage to do. I can not interpose the power with which 
I may be invested — a power conferred, not for my personal 
benefit, nor for my aggrandizement, but for my country's good 
— to check her onward march to greatness and glory. I have 
not courage enough. I am too cowardly for that. I would not, 
I dare not, in the exercise of such a threat, lie down and place 
my body across the path that leads my country to prosperity and 
happiness. This is a sort of courage widely different from that 
which a man may display in his private conduct and personal re- 
lations. Personal or private courage is totally distinct from that 
higher and nobler courage which prompts the patriot to offer him- 
self a voluntary sacrifice to his country's good. 

Apprehensions of the imputation of the want of firmness some- 
times impel us to perform rash and inconsiderate acts. It is the 
greatest courage to be able to bear the imputation of the want 
of courage. But pride, vanity, egotism, so unamiable and of- 
fensive in private life, are vices which partake of the character 
of crimes in the conduct of public affairs. The unfortunate 
victim of these passions can not see beyond the little, petty, con- 
temptible circle of his own personal interests. All his thoughts 
are withdrawn from his country, and concentrated on his consist- 
ency, his firmness, himself. The high, the exalted, the sublime 
emotions of a patriotism which, soaring towards heaven, rises 
far above all mean, low, or selfish things, and is absorbed by one 
soul-transporting thought of the good and the glory of one's 
country, are never felt in his impenetrable bosom. That patri- 
otism which, catching its inspirations from the immortal God, 
and leaving at an immeasurable distance below all lesser, grov- 



ON THE INDEPENDENCE OF GREECE. 13? 

eling, personal interests and feelings, animates and prompts to 
deeds of self-sacrifice, of valor, of devotion, and of death itself 
— that is public virtue ; that is the noblest, the sublimest of ah 
public virtues. 



On Recognizing the Independence of Greece. 

Henby Clay, 

Are we so low, so base, so despicable, that we may not ex- 
press our horror, articulate our detestation, of the most brutal 
and ferocious war that ever stained earth or shocked high Heav- 
en with the atrocious deeds of a brutal soldiery, set on by the 
clergy and followers of a fanatical and inimical religion, rioting 
in excess of blood and butchery, at the mere details of whicl 
the heart sickens ? If the great mass of Christendom can look 
coolly and calmly on while all this is perpetrated on a Christian 
people in their own vicinity, in their very presence, let us, at 
least, show that in this distant extremity there is still some sensi- 
bility and sympathy for Christian wrongs and sufferings — that 
there are still feelings which can kindle into indignation at the 
oppression of a people endeared to us by every ancient recollec- 
tion and every modern tie. But, sir, it is not first and chiefly 
for Greece that I wish to see this measure adopted. It will give 
them but little aid — that aid purely of a moral kind. It is, 
indeed, soothing and solacing in distress to hear the accents 
of a friendly voice. We know this as a people. But, sir, it is 
principally and mainly for America herself, for the credit and 
character of our common country, that I hope to see this reso- 
lution pass ; it is for our own unsullied name that I feel. 

What appearance, sir, on the page of history would a record 
like this make ! — " In the month of January, in the year of our 
Lord and Saviour 1824, while all European Christendom beheld 
with cold, unfeeling apathy the unexampled wrongs and inex- 
pressible misery of Christian Greece, a proposition was made in 
the Congress of the United States — almost the sole, the last, the 
greatest repository of human hope and of human freedom ; the 
representatives of a nation capable of bringing into the field a 
million of bayonets — while the freemen of that nation were 
spontaneously expressing its deep-toned feeling, its fervent prayer 
<br Grecian success ; while the whole continent was rising, by 
one simultaneous motion, solemnly and anxiously supplicating 
and invoking the aid of Heaven to spare Greece and to invig- 
orate her arms ; while temples and senate houses were all re- 



138 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Houndirvg with one burst of generous sympathy ; in the year of 
our Lord and Saviour — that Saviour alike of Christian Greece 
and of us — a proposition was offered in the American Congress 
to send a messenger to Greece to inquire into her state and 
condition, with an expression of our good wishes and our sym- 
pathies, and it was rejected ! " Go home, if you dare — go 
home, if you can — to your constituents, and tell them that you 
voted it down. Meet, if you dare, the appalling countenances 
of those who sent you here, and tell them that you shrank from 
the declaration of your own sentiments; that you can not tell 
how, but that some unknown dread, some indescribable appre- 
hension, some indefinable danger, affrighted you ; that the spec- 
ters of cimeters, and crowns, and crescents gleamed before you 
and alarmed you ; and that you suppressed all the noble feelings 
prompted by religion, by liberty, by national independence, and 
by humanity. I can not bring myself to believe that such will 
be the feeling of a majority of this house. 



The Advice of Polonius to his Son.— Suaxbtxjlrm. 

Give thy thoughts no tongue, 
Nor any unproportioned thought his act. 
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. 
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel ; 
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment 
Of ev'ry new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware 
Of entrance into quarrel; but, being in, 
Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee. 
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice : 
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment 
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, 
But not expressed in fancy ; rich, not gaudy ; 
For the apparel oft proclaims the man. 
Neither a borrower nor a lender be ; 
For loan oft loses both itself and friend, 
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 
This, above all — to thine own self be true, 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man. 



PEKPETUAL VIGILANCE THE PRICE OE LIBERTY. 139 



Pervetual Vigilance the Price of Liberty, 

John C. Calhoun, 

We make a great mistake in supposing all people capable oi 
self-government. Acting under that impression, many are anx 
ious to force free governments on all the people of this conti- 
nent, and over the world, if they had the power. It has been 
lately urged, in a very respectable quarter, that it is the mission 
of this country to spread civil and religious liberty over all the 
globe, and especially over this continent, even by force, if neces- 
sary. It is a sad delusion. None but a people advanced to a 
high state of moral and intellectual excellence are capable, in a 
civilized condition, of forming and maintaining free govern- 
ments ; and, among those who are so far advanced, very few 
indeed have had the good fortune to form constitutions capable 
of endurance. It is a remarkable fact in the political history of 
man, that there is scarcely an instance of a free constitutional 
government which has been the work exclusively of foresight 
and wisdom. They have all been the result of a fortunate com- 
bination of circumstances. It is a very difficult task to make a 
constitution worthy of being called so. This admirable federal 
constitution of ours is the result of such a combination. It is 
superior to the wisdom of any or of all the men by whose agen- 
cy it was made. The force of circumstances, and not foresight 
or wisdom, induced them to adopt many of its wisest provisions. 

But of the few nations who have been so fortunate as to adopt 
a wise constitution, still fewer have had the wisdom long to pre- 
serve one. It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty. After 
years of prosperity, the tenure by which it is held is but too 
often forgotten ; and I fear, senators, that such is the case with 
us. There is no solicitude now for liberty. Who talks of liber 
ty when any great question comes up ? Here is a question of 
the first magnitude as to the conduct of this war ; do you heai 
any body talk about its effects upon our liberties and our free 
institutions ? No, sir. That was not the case formerly. In the 
early stages of our government, the great anxiety was, how to 
preserve liberty. The great anxiety now is for the attainment 
of mere military glory. In the one we are forgetting the other. 
The maxim of former times was, that power is always stealing 
from the many to the few ; the price of liberty was perpetual 
viguance. They were constantly looking out and watching for 
danger. Not so now. Is it because there has been any decay 
of liberty among the people ? Not at all. I believe the love of 



140 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

liberty was never more ardent ; but they have forgotten the ten- 
ure of liberty, by which alone it is preserved. 

We think we may now indulge in every thing with impunity, 
as if we held our charter by " right divine" — from Heaven it- 
self. Under these impressions we plunge into war, we contract 
heavy debts, we increase the patronage of the executive, and we 
talk of a crusade to force our institutions of liberty upon all 
people. There is no species of extravagance which our people 
imagine will endanger their liberty in any degree. Sir, the hour 
is approaching, the day of retribution will come. It will come 
as certainly as I am now addressing the Senate ; and, when it 
does come, awful will be the reckoning, heavy the responsibility 
somewhere. 



On the Prospect of War. — John C. Calhoun, 

We are told of the danger of war. We are ready to ac- 
knowledge its hazard and misfortune, but I cannot think that we 
have any extraordinary danger to apprehend — at least, none to 
warrant an acquiescence in the mjuries we have received. On 
the contrary, I believe no war would be less dangerous to inter- 
nal peace or the safety of the country. 

In speaking of Canada, the gentleman from Virginia intro- 
duced the name of Montgomery with much feeling and interest. 
Sir, there is danger in that name to the gentleman's argument. 
It is sacred to heroism. It is indignant of submission. It calls 
our memory back to the time of our revolution, to the Congress 
of 1774 and 1775. Suppose a speaker of that day had risen 
and urged all the arguments which we have heard on this occa- 
sion ; had told that Congress, u Your contest is about the right 
of laying a tax ; the attempt on Canada has nothing to do with 
it ; the war will be expensive ; danger and devastation will over- 
spread our country, and the power of Great Britain is irresisti- 
ble." With what sentiment, think you, would such doctrines 
have been received ? Happy for us, they had no force at that 
period of our country's glory. Had such been acted on, this 
hall would never have witnessed a great people convened to de- 
liberate for the general good ; a mighty empire, with prouder 
prospects than any nation the sun ever shone on, would not have 
risen in the west. No ; we would have been vile, subjected 
colonies, governed by that imperious rod which Britain holds 
over her distant provinces. 

The gentleman is at a loss to account for what he calls our 



AGAINST THE FORCE BILL. 14 

hatred to England. He asks, " How can we hate the country of 
Locke, of Newton, Hampden, and Chatham — a country having 
the same language and customs with ourselves, and descended 
from a common ancestry ? " Sir, the laws of human affections 
are steady and uniform. If we have so much to attach us to 
that country, powerful, indeed, must be the cause which has 
overpowered it. Yes, sir, there is a cause strong enough. Not 
that occult, courtly affection which he has supposed to be enter- 
tained for France, but continued and unprovoked insult and 
injury ; a cause so manifest, that the gentleman had to exert 
much ingenuity to overlook it. But, in his eager admiration of 
that country, he has not been sufficiently guarded in his argu- 
ment. Has he reflected on the cause of that admiration ? Has 
he examined the reasons of our high regard for her Chatham ? 
It is his ardent patriotism ; his heroic courage, which could not 
brook the least insult or injury offered to his country, but thought 
that her interest and honor ought to be vindicated, be the hazard 
and expense what they might. I hope when we are called on to 
admire, we shall also be asked to imitate. 



the Force Bill. — John C. Calhoun, 

It is said that the bill ought to pass, because the law must be 
enforced. The law must be enforced! The imperial edict 
must be executed ! It is under such sophistry, couched in gen- 
eral terms, without looking to the limitations which must ever 
exist in the practical exercise of power, that the most cruel and 
despotic acts ever have been covered. It was such sophistry as 
this that cast Daniel into the lions' den, and the three innocents 
into the fiery furnace. Under the same sophistry the bloody 
edicts of Nero and Caligula were executed. The law must be 
enforced ! Yes, the act imposing the tea tax " must be exe- 
cuted." This was the very argument which impelled Lord North 
and his administration in that mad career which forever sepa- 
rated us from the British crown. Under a similar sophistry, 
" that religion must be protected," how many massacres have 
been perpetrated, and how many martyrs have been tied to the 
stake ! What ! acting on this vague abstraction, are you pre- 
pared to enforce a law, without considering whether it be just or 
unjust, constitutional or unconstitutional ? Will you collect mon- 
ey when it is acknowledged that it is not wanted ? He who 
earns the money, who digs it from the earth with the sweat of 

G 



14fc ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

his brow, has a just title to it against the universe. No one has 
a right to touch it without his consent, except his government, and 
that only to the extent of its legitimate wants. To take more is 
robbery; and you propose by this bill to enforce robbery by 
murder. Yes, to this result you must come, by this miserable 
sophistry, this vague abstraction of enforcing the law, without a 
regard to the fact whether the law be just or unjust, constitu- 
tional or unconstitutional. 

In the same spirit we are told that the Union must be pre- 
served, without regard to the means. And how is it proposed to 
preserve the Union ? By force. Does any man in his senses 
believe that this beautiful structure, this harmonious aggregate 
of states, produced by the joint consent of all, can be preserved 
by force ? Its very introduction would be the certain destruction 
of this Federal Union. No, no ! You can not keep the states 
united in their constitutional and federal bonds by force. Has 
reason fled from our borders ? Have we ceased to reflect ? It 
is madness to suppose that the Union can be preserved by force. 
I tell you plainly that the bill, should it pass, can not be enforced. 
It will prove only a blot upon your statute book, a reproach to 
the year, and a disgrace to the American Senate. I repeat that 
it will not be executed ; it will rouse the dormant spirit of the 
people, and open their eyes to the approach of despotism. The 
country has sunk into avarice and political corruption, from 
which nothing can arouse it but some measure, on the part of the 
government, of folly and madness, such as that now under con 
sideration. 



Time, — gl d. Prenticb. 

Remorseless Time ! 
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe ! What power 
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt 
His iron heart to pity ? On, still on 
He presses, and forever. The proud bird, 
The condor of the Andes, that can soar 
Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave 
The fury of the northern hurricane, 
And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, 
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks dc*i*ai 
To rest upon his mountain crag. But Time 
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, 
And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind 



THE PURSE AND THE SWORD. 143 

His rushing pinions. Revolutions sweep 
O'er earth like troubled visions o'er the breast 
Of dreaming sorrow ; cities rise and sink 
Like bubbles on the water ; fiery isles 
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back 
To their mysterious caverns ; mountains rear 
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow 
Their tall heads to the plain ; new empires rise, 
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries, 
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche, 
Startling the nations ; and the very stars, 
Yon bright and burning blazonry of God. 
Glitter a while in their eternal depths, 
And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, 
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away 
To darkle in the trackless void. Yet Time, 
Time the tomb builder, holds his fierce career, 
Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not, 
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path, 
To sit and muse, like other conquerors, 
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought. 



The Purse and the Sword. — John c. Calhoun, 

There was a time, in the better days of the republic, when to 
show what ought to be done was to insure the adoption of the 
measure. Those days have passed away, I fear, forever. A 
power has risen up in the government greater than the people 
themselves, consisting of nltiny, and various, and powerful inter- 
ests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive 
power of the vast surplus in the banks. This mighty combina- 
tion will be opposed to any change ; and it is to be feared that, 
such is its influence, no measure to which it is opposed can 
become a law, however expedient and necessary ; and that the 
public money will remain in their possession, to be disposed of, 
not as the public interest, but as theirs, may dictate. The time, 
indeed, seems fast approaching when no law can pass, nor 
any honor can be conferred, from the chief magistrate to the 
tide waiter, without the assent of this powerful and interested 
combination, which is steadily becoming the government itself 
to the utter subversion of the authority of the people. Nay, I 
fear we are in the midst of it ; and I look with anxiety to the 
fate of this measure, as the test whether we are or not. 



144 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

If nothing should be done — if the money which justly belongs 
to the people be left where it is, with the many and overwhelm- 
ing objections to it — the fact will prove that a great and radical 
change has been effected ; that the government is subverted ; 
that the authority of the people is suppressed by a union of the 
banks and the executive — a union a hundred times more dan- 
gerous than that of church and state, against which the constitu- 
tion has so jealously guarded. It would be the announcement 
of a state of things from which, it is to be feared, there can be 
no recovery — a state of boundless corruption and the lowest 
and basest subserviency. It seems to be the order of Providence 
that, with the exception of these, a people may recover from any 
other evil. Piracy, robbery, and violence of 1 every description 
may, as history proves, be succeeded by virtue, patriotism, and 
national greatness ; but where is the example to be found of a 
degenerate, corrupt, and subservient people, who have ever re- 
covered their virtue and patriotism ? Their doom has ever been 
the lowest state of wretchedness and misery ; scorned, trodden 
down, and obliterated forever from the list of nations. May 
Heaven grant that such may never be our doom. 



Liberty the Meed of Intelligence. 

John C. Calhoun, 

Society can no more exist without government, in one form 
or another, than man without society. It is the political, then, 
which includes the social, that is his natural state. It is the one 
for which his Creator formed him, into which he is impelled 
irresistibly, and in which only his race can exist, and all his facul- 
ties be fully developed. Such being the case, it follows that any, 
the worst form of government is better than anarchy, and that 
individual liberty or freedom must be subordinate to whatever 
power may be necessary to protect society against anarchy with- 
in or destruction from without ; for the safety and well being of 
society are as paramount to individual liberty as the safety and 
well being of the race are to that of individuals ; and, in the same 
proportion, the power necessary for the safety of society is par- 
amount to individual liberty. On the contrary, government has 
no right to control individual liberty beyond what is necessary to 
ihe safety and well being of society. Such is the boundary 
which separates the power of government and the liberty of 
the citizen or subject in the political state, which as I hp.ve 



MUSIC. 145 

shown, is the natural state of man, the only one in which his 
race can exist, and the one in which he is born, lives, and dies. 

It follows from all this that the quantum of power on the part 
of the government, and of liberty on that of individuals, instead 
of being equal in all cases, must necessarily be very unequal 
among different people, according to their different conditions. 
For just in proportion as a people are ignorant, stupid, debased, 
corrupt, exposed to violence within and danger without, the power 
necessary for government to possess, in order to preserve societ"" 
against anarchy and destruction, becomes greater and greatei 
and individual liberty less and less, until the lowest condition is 
reached, when absolute and despotic power becomes necessary 
on the part of the government, and individual liberty extinct. 
So, on the contrary, just as a people rise in the scale of intelli- 
gence, virtue, and patriotism, and the more perfectly they become 
acquainted with the nature of government, the ends for which it 
was ordered, and how it ought to be administered, and the less 
the tendency to violence and disorder within and danger from 
abroad, the power necessary for government becomes less and 
less, and individual liberty greater and greater. Instead, then, 
of all men having the same right to liberty and equality, as is 
claimed by those who hold that they are all born free and equal, 
liberty is the noblest and highest reward bestowed on mental and 
moral development, combined with favorable circumstances. 
Instead, then, of liberty and equality being born with man, — 
instead of all men, and all classes and descriptions, being equally 
entitled to them, — they are high prizes to be won; and are, in 
their most perfect state, not only the highest reward that can be 
bestowed on our race, but the most difficult to be won, and, when 
won, the most difficult to be preserved. 



Music. — Shakspearb. 

Therefore the poet 
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods ; 
Since naught so stockish, hard, and full of rage, 
But music for the time doth change its nature. 
The man that hath no music in himself, 
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; 
The motions of his spirit are dull as night. 
And his affections dark as Erebus : 
Let no such man be trusted 
10 



146 ROSS'S SPEAKER 



Lines. — Wordsworth 



My heart leaps up when I behold 

A rainbow in the sky : 
So was it when my life began ; 
So is it now I am a man ; 
So be it when I shall grow old, 

Or let me die. 
The child is father of the man ; 
And I could wish my days to be 
Bound each to each by natural piety. 



Genius. 

What is genius ? 'Tis a flame 
Kindling all the human frame ; 
'Tis a ray that lights the eye, 
Soft in love, in battle high ; 
'Tis the lightning of the mind, 
Unsubdued and undefined ; 
'Tis the flood that pours along 
The full, clear melody of song ; 
'Tis the sacred boon of Heaven, 
To its choicest favorites given. 
They who feel can paint it well. 
What is genius ? Byron, tell ! 



Portraiture of S. 8. Prentiss. — J. G. Baldwin, 

There was no element of oratory that Prentiss's genius did 
not supply. It was plain to see whence his boyhood had drawn 
its romantic inspiration. His imagination was colored and im- 
bued with the light of the shadowy past, and was richly stored 
with the unreal but life-like creations which the genius of Shaks- 
peare and Scott had evoked from the ideal world. He had lin- 
gered spell-bound among the scenes of medieval chivalry. His 
spirit had dwelt, until almost naturalized, in the mystic dream- 
land they peopled — among paladins, and crusaders, and knight? 
templars. 



PORTRAITURE OF S. S. PRENTISS. 14* 

He could speak the thoughts of poetry with the inspiration of 
oratory and the tones of music. The fluency of his speech was 
unbroken — no syllable unpronounced — not a ripple on the 
smooth and brilliant tide. Probably he never hesitated for a 
word in his life. His diction adapted itself without effort to the 
thought ; now easy and familiar, now stately and dignified, now 
beautiful and various as the hues of the rainbow ; again compact, 
even rugged in sinewy strength, and lofty and grand in eloquent 
declamation. 

His face and manner were alike uncommon. The turn of 
his head was like Byron's ; the face and the action were just 
what the mind made them. The excitement of the features, the 
motions of the head and body, the gesticulation he used, were 
all in absolute harmony with the words you heard. You saw 
and took cognizance of the general effect only ; the particular 
instrumentalities did not strike you ; they certainly did not call 
off attention to themselves. How a countenance so redolent of 
good humor as his at times could so soon be overcast, and ex- 
press such intense bitterness, seemed a marvel. But bitterness 
and the angry passions were probably as strongly implanted in 
him as any other sentiments or qualities. 

There was much about him to remind you of Byron : the cast 
of head, the classic features, the fiery and restive nature, the 
moral and personal daring, the imaginative and poetical temper- 
ament, the scorn and deep passion, the deformity of which 1 
have spoken, the satiric wit, the craving for excitement and the 
air of melancholy he sometimes wore, his early neglect and the 
imagined slights put upon him in his unfriended youth, the col- 
lisions, mental and physical, which he had with others, his bril- 
liant and sudden reputation, and the romantic interest which 
invested him, make up a list of correspondences still farther 
increased, alas ! by his untimely death. 

He is gone. He died, and lies buried near that noble river 
which first, when a raw Yankee boy, caught his poetic eye, and 
stirred by its aspect of grandeur his sublime imagination ; upon 
whose shores first fell his burning and impassioned words, as 
they aroused the rapturous applause of his astonished auditors. 
And long will that noble river flow out its tide into the gulf, ere 
the roar of its current shall mingle with the tones of such elo- 
quence again — eloquence as full and majestic, as resistless and 
sublime, and as wild in its sweep as its own sea-like flood. 

" The mightiest river 
Rolls mingling with his fame forever." 



148 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Mississippi Contested Election. — s. s. Prentiss, 



Sir, if you consummate this usurpation, you degrade the State 
of Mississippi ; and if she submits, never again can she wear the 
lofty look of conscious independence. Burning shame will set 
its seal upon her brow ; and when her proud sons travel in other 
lands, they will blush at the history of her dishonor, as it falls 
from the sneering lip of the stranger. Sir, place her not in that 
terrible and trying position, in which her love for this glorious 
Union will be found at war with her own honor and the para- 
mount obligation which binds her to transmit to the next genera- 
tion, untarnished and undiminished, her portion of that rich 
legacy of the revolution, which was bought with blood, and 
which should never be parted with for a price less than what it 
cost. Is there a state in this Union that would part with it — 
that would submit to have her representatives chosen by this 
house, and forced upon her against her will ? 

Come, what says the Bay State, time-honored Massachusetts 7 
From the cradle in which young Liberty was first rocked, even 
from old Faneuil Hall, comes forth her ready answer ; and before 
it dies away, again it is repeated from Bunker Hill — " It was for 
this very right of representation our fathers fought the battles 
of the revolution, and ere we will surrender this dear-bought 
right, those battles shall again become dread realities." Would 
Kentucky submit ? Ask her, Mr. Speaker, and her Mammoth 
Cavern will find a voice to thunder in your ear her stern re- 
sponse — " No ; sooner than submit to such an outrage, our soil 
shall be rebaptized with a new claim to the proud but melan- 
choly title of the dark and bloody ground." And what says 
Virginia, with her high device — her " sic semper tyrannis" 
he, loftiest motto that ever blazed upon a warrior's shield or a 
nation's arms ? How would she brook such usurpation ? What 
says the mother of states and state-right doctrines — she who 
lias placed instruction as a guardian over representation ? What 
says she to the proposition that this house can make representa- 
tives and force them upon a state in violation of its choice and 
will ? And where is South Carolina, the Harry Percy of the 
Union ? On which side, in this great controversy, does she 
couch her lance and draw her blade ? I trust upon the side of 
her sister state ; upon the side, too, of the constitutional rights 
of all the states ; and let her lend the full strength of her good 
right arm to the blow, when she strikes in so righteous a quarrei 



LAFAYETTE'S VISIT TO AMERICA. 14Q 

Upon all the states I do most solemnly call for that justice „o an- 
other which they would expect for themselves. Let this cup 
pass from Mississippi. Compel her not to drink its bitter ingre- 
dients, lest, some day, u even-handed justice shou d commend the 
poisoned chalice to your own lips." Rescind that resolution, 
which presses like a foul incubus upon the constitution. You sit 
here, twenty-five sovereign states, in judgment upon the most sa- 
cred right of a sister state. Should you decide against her, you 
tear from her brow the richest jewel which sparkles there, and 
forever bow her head in shame and dishonor. But if your de- 
termination is taken — if the blow must fall — if the violated 
constitution must bleed — I have but one request on her behalf 
to make. When you decide that she can not choose her own 
representation, at that self same moment blot from the spangled 
banner of this Union the bright star that glitters to the name of 
Mississippi, but leave the stripe behind, a fit emblem of hei 
degradation. 



Lafayette' s Visit to America. — s. s. Pkentiss. 

In 1824, on Sunday, a single ship furled her snowy sails in 
the harbor of New York. Scarcely had her prow touched the 
shore, when a murmur was heard among the multitude, which 
gradually deepened into a mighty shout, and that shout was a 
shout of joy. Again and again were the heavens rent with the 
inspiring sound. Nor did it cease ; for the loud strain was car- 
ried from city to city, and from state to state, till not a tongue 
was silent throughout this wide republic, from the lisping infant 
to the tremulous old man. All were united in one wild shout of 
gratulation. The voices of more than ten millions of freemen 
gushed up towards the sky, and broke the stillness of its silent 
depths. But one note and but one tone went to form this accla- 
mation. Up in those pure regions clearly and sweetly did it 
sound — " Honor to Lafayette ! Welcome to the nation's guest ! " 
It was Lafayette, the war-worn veteran, whose arrival upon our 
shores had caused this wide-spread, this universal joy. He came 
among us to behold the independence and the freedom which his 
young arm had so well assisted in achieving ; and never before 
did eye behold, or heart of man conceive, such homage paid to 
virtue. 

His whole stay amongst us was a continued triumph. Every 
day's march was an ovation. The United States became for 
months one great festive hall. People forgot the usual occupa* 

G* 



150 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

tions of ife, and crowded to behold the benefactor of mankind 
The iron-hearted, gray-haired veterans of the revolution thronged 
around him, to touch his hand, to behold his face, and to call 
down Heaven's benison upon their old companion in arms. Lisp- 
ing infancy and garrulous age, beauty, talents, wealth, and power, 
all for a while forsook their usual pursuits, and united to pay a 
willing tribute of gratitude and welcome to the nation's guest. 
The name of Lafayette was upon every lip, and wherever was 
his name, there too was an invocation for blessings on his head. 
What were the triumphs of the classic ages, compared with this 
unbought love and homage of a mighty people ? Take them in 
Rome's best days, when the invincible generals of the Eternal 
City returned from their foreign conquests with captive kings 
bound to their chariot wheels, and the spoils of nations in their 
train — followed by their stern and bearded warriors, and sur- 
rounded by the interminable multitudes of the seven-hilled city 
shouting a fierce welcome home — what was such a triumph, 
compared with that of Lafayette ? 

Not a single city, but a whole nation rising as one man, and 
greeting him with an affectionate embrace. One single day of 
such spontaneous homage were worth whole years of courtly 
adulation ; one hour might well reward a man for a whole life 
of danger and of toil. Then, too, the joy with which he must 
have viewed the prosperity of the people for whom he had so 
heroically struggled — to behold the nation which he had left 
a little child now grown up in the full proportions of lusty 
manhood — to see the tender sapling, which he had left with 
hardly shade enough to cover its own roots, now waxing into 
the sturdy and unwedgeable oak, beneath whose grateful um- 
brage the oppressed of all nations find shelter and protection. 
That oak still grows on in its majestic strength, and wider and 
wider still extend its mighty branches. But the hand that wa- 
tered and nourished it while yet a tender plant is now cold ; the 
heart that watched with strong affection its early growth has 
ceased to beat. 



Death Of Lafayette.— S. S. Prentiss. 

Death, who knocks with equal hand at the door of the cottage 
and the palace gate, has been busy at his appointed work. 
Mourning prevails throughout the land, and the countenances of 
ail are shrouded in the mantle of regret. Far across the wild 
Atlantic, amid the pleasant vineyards in the sunny land of 



DEATH OF LAFAYETTE. 151 

France, there too is mourning, and the weeds of sorrow are 
alike worn by prince and peasant. And against whom has the 
monarch of the tomb turned his remorseless dart, that such wide- 
spread sorrow should prevail ? Hark ! and the agonized voice 
of Freedom, weeping for her favorite son, will tell you, in strains 
sadder than those with which she shrieked at Kosciusko's fall, 
that Lafayette, the gallant and the good, has ceased to live. 

The friend and companion of Washington is no more. He 
who taught the eagle of our country, while yet unfledged, to 
plume his young wing and mate his talons with the lion's strength, 
has taken his flight far beyond the stars, beneath whose influence 
he fought so well. Lafayette is dead. The gallant ship, whose 
pennon has so often bravely streamed above the roar of battle 
and the tempest's rage, has at length gone slowly down in the 
still and quiet waters. Well mightst thou, O Death, now recline 
beneath the laurels thou hast won, and for a while forego thy re- 
lentless task ; for never, since, as the grim messenger of almighty 
vengeance, thou earnest into this world, did a more generous 
heart cease to heave beneath thy chilling touch, and never will 
thy insatiable dart be hurled against a nobler breast. Who does 
not feel, at the mournful intelligence, as if he had lost something 
cheering from his own path through life ? as if some bright star, 
at which he had been accustomed frequently and fondly to gaze, 
had been suddenly extinguished in the firmament ? 

The page of history abounds with those who have struggled 
forth from the nameless crowd, and, standing forward in the 
front ranks, challenged the notice of their fellow-men. But 
when, in obedience to their bold demands, we examine their 
claims to our admiration, how seldom do we find aught that ex- 
cites our respect or commands our veneration ! With what 
pleasure do we turn from the contemplation of the Caesars and 
Napoleons of the human race to meditate upon the character 
of Lafayette ! We feel proud that we belong to the same spe- 
cies, we feel proud that we live in the same age, and we feel 
still more proud that our own country drew forth and nurtured 
those generous virtues which went to form a character that, for 
love of liberty, romantic chivalry, unbounded generosity, and 
unwavering integrity, has never had a parallel. 



The Same, concluded, 

Vip'tte forms no shield to ward off the arrows of death. 
Could it have availed, even when joined with the prayers of a 



162 ROSS'S SPEAK EH. 

whole civilized world, then, indeed, this mournful occasion would 
never have occurred, and the life of Lafayette would have been 
as eternal as his fame. Yet, though he has passed from among 
us — though that countenance will no more be seen that used to 
lighten up the van of freedom's battles as he led her eaglets tc 
their feast — still has he left behind his better part, the legacy of 
his bright example, the memory of his deeds. The lisping in- 
fant will learn to speak his venerated name. The youth of every 
country will be taught to look upon his career and follow in his 
footsteps. When, hereafter, a gallant people are fighting for 
freedom against the oppressor, and their cause begins to wane 
before the mercenary bands of tyranny, then will the name of 
Lafayette become a watchword that will strike with terror on the 
tyrant's ear, and nerve with redoubled vigor the freeman's arm. 
At that name many a heart before unmoved will wake in the 
glorious cause ; many a sword, rusting ingloriously in its scab- 
bard, will leap forth to battle. And, even amid the mourning 
with which our souls are shrouded, is there not some room for 
gratulation ? 

Our departed friend and benefactor has gone down to the 
grave, peacefully and quietly, at a good old age. He had per- 
formed his appointed work. His virtues were ripe. He had 
done nothing to sully his fair fame. No blot or soil of envy or 
calumny can now affect him. His character will stand upon the 
pages of history pure and unsullied as the lilied emblem on his 
country's banner. He has departed from among us, but he has 
become again the companion of Washington. He has but left 
the friends of his old age to associate with the friends of his 
youth. Peace be to his ashes. Calm and quiet may they rest 
upon some vine-clad hill of his own beloved land ; and it shall 
be called the Mount Vernon of France. And let no cunning 
sculpture, no monumental marble, deface with its mock dignity 
the patriot's grave ; but rather let the unpruned vine, the wild 
flower, and the free song of the uncaged bird — all that speaks 
of freedom and of peace — be gathered round it. Lafayette 
needs no mausoleum. His fame is mingled with a nation's his- 
tory. His epitaph is engraved upon the hearts of men. 



Toasting. — S. S Prentiss. 

Perhaps the most remarkable property of toasting is its won 
derful facility in making great men. It was the anc'ent opinion 



CRANIOLOGY. 153 

— though one which has long been exploded — that, to be great, 
a man must have performed some great, virtuous, or noble ac- 
tion — must have shown, either mentally or physically, some supe- 
riority over his fellow-beings. Now, thank Heaven, nothing of 
this sort is required ; for the whole secret of greatness is com- 
prised in the single word notoriety ; and the most approved 
method of becoming notorious is by toasting. Does a man 
wish to become notorious, — that is, great, — he gets a friend to 
propose his health at some public dinner, with an enumeration 
of all the good qualities he does not possess. The people, filled 
almost to bursting with the fat things prepared for them, over- 
flowing with charity and good liquor, drink the health with great 
applause ; which is elicited, however, in most cases, not by the 
person, but by the flavor of the wine. 

Fired by such manifest signs of popular favor, the candidate 
for greatness rises, and assures them, very truly, that they are 
pleased to honor him more than he deserves ; that modesty 
would induce him to be silent, but his heart (he had better say his 
stomach) is too full for restraint ; that no sacrifices would be 
too great for their kindness towards him ; that he would go 
even to Congress, for the love he bears his country ; he assures 
them that the United States is the greatest nation on the globe, — 
his own state the first in the Union — the county in which they 
are eating the best in the state — at the same time modestly 
insinuating that he is himself the greatest man in the county — 
and, finally, winds up by proposing himself a candidate for the 
next election. The people are astonished to find they have had 
so great a man amongst them without ever dreaming of it ; and 
they send him to Congress forthwith. Thus sure and easy is 
the toasting path to greatness. 



Oraniology. — s. s. Pbbntiss. 

The god Momus found fault with Jupiter for not placing a 
window in the heart of man ; which would have enabled one, 
merely by looking in at it, to have ascertained a person's charac- 
ter as well at first sight as after a dozen years 1 acquaintance. 
Mankind have sanctioned the criticism of the heathen deity ; as 
?s manifested by the great pains they are continually taking for 
finding out the real sentiments of their fellow-beings. It is to 
their anxiety on this subject that we owe the various theories 
which have, from time to time, been broached for discovering a 



154 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

man's character by outward signs or appearances. Thus Lava- 
ter considered the features, and the various and complex lines 
upon the countenance, as the true handwriting of Nature, which 
she hath affixed as a label upon the face — precisely as an 
apothecary marks upon a vial the nature of its contents. 

Within a few years, craniology has been made to answer the 
purpose of the window of Momus ; and the human head, like 
*he United States, is divided off into a number of independent 
bumps, which have, however, a reciprocal influence upon each 
other. The character of each of these bumps is as well ascer- 
tained as that of the people of any of the aforesaid states, and 
the character of the individual is made up by a compound of 
them all — each bump being taxed for this purpose just in pro- 
portion to its bigness. Now, although it is a digression, I can not 
help observing, what a wonderful argument this system affords 
in favor of a republican form of government, showing that Na- 
ture herself has chosen it as the best, in her arrangement of the 
human mind. 

Take an example : suppose that, like honest Jack Falstaff, my 
bump of discretion exceeds my bump of valor, and that some 
one insults me ; the community of Courage, residing in the 
bump of Valor, is immediately enraged, and rises in arms to 
punish the aggressor : but, " Stop," cry the cautious, though 
more numerous citizens of the commonwealth of Discretion, 
" most haughty Valor ; we don't choose to be dragged into this 
contest ; if you wish to fight, you must fight it out alone : for 
ourselves, we have advised with counsel, and intend taking the 
law of the fellow." At this remonstrance, the community of 
Courage lay down their arms, like good citizens, obedient to the 
will of the majority. 

But to return. Though I have great belief in physiognomy, 
and though I doubt not that the rapid development of intellect 
may force out corresponding protuberances of the cranium, just 
as we see mountains arise on the face of the globe by the opera- 
tion of internal fire, yet both these theories are so liable to 
error, the exceptions to the general rule are so numerous, that I 
have been led to try some other method of getting out a man's 
true character. 



Virginia Patriotism. —J. G. Baldwht, 

The disposition to be proud and vain of one's country, and to 
boast of it, is a natural feeling, indulged or not, in respec} to the 



VIRGINIA PATRIOTISM. 155 

pride, vanity, and boasting, according to the character of the 
native : but with a Virginian, it is a passion. It inheres in him 
even as the flavor of a York River oyster in that bivalve, and no 
distance of deportation, and no trimmings of a gracious pros- 
perity, and no pickling in the sharp acids of adversity, can de- 
stroy it. It is a part of the Virginia character, — just as the 
flavor is a distinctive part of the oyster, — " which can not, save 
by annihilating, die." It is no use talking about it — the thing 
may be right, or wrong : like FalstafT's victims at Gadshill, it 
is past praying for : it is a sort of cocoa grass that has got into 
the soil, and has so matted over it, and so filered through it, as to 
have become a part of it ; at least, there is no telling which is 
the grass and which is the soil ; and certainly it is useless labor 
to try to root it out. You may destroy the soil, but you can't 
root out the grass. 

Patriotism with a Virginian is a noun personal. It is the 
Virginian himself and something over. He loves Virginia per 
se and propter se : he loves her for herself and for himself — 
because she is Virginia and — every thing else beside. He loves 
to talk about her : " Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
speaketh." It makes no odds where he goes, he carries Vir- 
ginia with him ; not in the entirety always, — but the little spot 
he came from is Virginia, — as Swedenborg says, " The smallest 
part of the brain is an abridgment of all of it." " Caelum, non 
animum, mutant, qui trans mare currunt,"* was made for a Vir- 
ginian. He never gets acclimated elsewhere ; he never loses 
citizenship to the old home. The right of expatriation is a pure 
abstraction to him. He may breathe in Alabama, but he lives in 
Virginia. His treasure is there, and his heart also. If he looks at 
the Delta of the Mississippi, it reminds him of James River " low 
grounds ; " if he sees the vast prairies of Texas, it is a memorial of 
the meadows of " the Valley." Richmond is the centre of attrac- 
tion, the depot of all that is grand, great, good, and glorious. 



The Same, concluded. 

There is nothing presumptuous y froward in this Virginianism. 
The Virginian does not make broad his phylacteries, and crow 
over the poor Carolinian and Tennesseean. He does not re- 
proach him with his misfortune of birthplace. No ; he thinks the 

* Those who cross the sea change their climate, but not their mind. — Horace 



156 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

affliction is enough without the triumph. The franchise of hav 
ing been born in Virginia, and the prerogative founded thereon, 
are too patent of honor and distinction to be arrogantly pre- 
tended. The bare mention is enough. He finds occasion to let 
the fact be known, and then the fact is fully able to protect and 
take care of itself. Like a ducal title, there is no need of saying 
more than to name it : modesty, then, is a becoming and ex- 
pected virtue ; forbearance to boast is true dignity. 

The Virginian is a magnanimous man. He never throws up 
to a Yankee the fact of his birthplace. He feels on the subject 
as a man of delicacy feels in alluding to a rope in the presence 
of a person, one of whose brothers " stood upon nothing and 
kicked at the United States ; " and so far do they carry this re- 
finement, that I have known one of my countrymen, on occasion 
of a Bostonian owning where he was born, generously protest 
that he had never heard of it before ; as if honest confession 
half obliterated the shame of the fact. Yet he does not lack 
the grace to acknowledge worth or merit in another, wherever 
the native place of that other ; for it is a common thing to hear 
them say of a neighbor, " He is a clever fellow, though he did 
come from New Jersey, or even from Connecticut." * * * 

It is not, however, to be denied, that Virginia is the land of 
orators, heroes, and statesmen ; and that, directly or indirectly, 
she has exerted an influence upon the national councils nearly as 
great as all the rest of the states combined. It is wonderful that 
a state of its size and population should have turned out such an 
unprecedented quantum of talent, and of talent as various in 
kind as prodigious in amount. She has reason to be proud ; and 
the other states, so largely in her debt, ought, therefore, to allow 
her the harmless privilege of a little bragging. 



Henry Clay,— Anoic. 

Pride of the West ! -whose clarion tone 
Thrilled grandly through her forest lone 
And waked to bound ing life the shore 
Where darkness only sat before ; 
How millions bent before thy shrine, 
Beholding there a light divine — 
Caught on the golden chain of love, 
From its majestic course above. 



HENRY CLAY. 157 

Star of our Hope ! when Battle's call 
Had wove the soldier's gory pall — 
When, blazing o'er the troubled seas, 
Death came tumultuous on the breeze, 
And men beheld Columbia's frame 
Scorched by the lurid levin flame — 
Thou, thou didst pour the patriot strain,* 
And thrilled with it each bleeding vein, 
Until the star-lit banner streamed 

Like tempest fires around the foe, 
Whose crimson cross no longer gleamed 
In triumph where it erst had beamed, 

But sunk beneath our gallant blow. 

Sun of the Free ! where Summer smiles 
Eternal o'er the clustered isles — 
Where Greece unsheathed her olden blade 
For glory in the haunted shade — 
Where Chimborazo, stands sublime, 
A landmark by the sea of Time t — 
Thy name shall, as a blessing given 

For man, O ! never to depart, 
Peal from our gladdened earth to heaven — 

The warm, wild music of the heart. 

Pride of the Just ! what though dark Hate 

Her frenzied storm around thee rolls ; 
Has it not ever been the fate 

Of all this earth's truth -speaking souls ? 
Lightnings may play upon the rock 

Whose star-kissed forehead wooes the gale, 
While they escape the thunder shock 

Who dwell within the lonely vale — 
Living unnoted ! — not so thou, 
Chief of the fearless soul and brow ; 
Yet let the lightning and the storm 
Beat on thy long-devoted form ; 
The silvery daydream bursts, and lo, 
Around thee curls the promise-bow. 

Look ! on yon height Columbia stands, 
Immortal laurels in her hands ; 

* Alluding to his efforts as republican leader in Congress during the late war. 
{• Who can forget Henry Clay's burning eloquence in advocacy of Grecian and South 
American independence? 






158 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

And hark her voice — " Rise ! Freemen, rise ! 

Unloose the chain from every breast ; 
See, see the splendor in yon skies, 

Flashed from the bosom of the west ! " 
Roused at the sound, lo, millions leap 
Like giants from inglorious sleep. 
What cries are here ? What sounds prevail ? 
Whose name is thundering on the gale ? — 
(Far in the mountains of the north, 

Far in the sunny south away, 
A winged luster bounding forth) 

The deathless name of Henry Clay ! 



Henry Clay's Last Speech, made during his Last 
Illness, in an Interview with Louis Kossuth. 

[We find the following report of the interview between these two dis- 
tinguished men in the National Intelligencer. It was written by Hon. 
Presley Ewing, of Kentucky, and revised by Senator Jones, of Tennessee, 
both of whom were present, together with General Cass, and Mr. Fendal, 
of Washington City : — 

M. Kossuth was introduced by Mr. Cass at about three o'clock, and, on 
being presented to Mr. Clay, who rose to receive him, said, " Sir, I thank 
you for the honor of this interview." 

" I beg you to believe," said Mr. Clay, interrupting him, " that it is I 
who am honored. Will you be pleased to be seated ? " 

After the mutual interchange of civilities, — "I owe you, sir," said Mr. 
Clay, " an apology for not having acceded before to the desire you were 
kind enough to intimate more than once to see me. But really my health 
has been so feeble that I did not dare to hazard the excitement of so inter- 
esting an interview. Besides, sir," he added, with some pleasantry, 
" your wonderful and fascinating eloquence has mesmerized so large a 
portion of our people, wherever you have gone, and even some of our 
members of Congress," waving his hand toward the two or three gentle- 
men who were present, " that I feared to come under its influence, lest 
you might shake my faith in some principles in regard to the foreign policy 
of this government, which I have long and constantly cherished."] 

In regard to the foreign policy of this government, you will 
allow me, I hope, to speak with that sincerity and candor which 
becomes the interest the subject has for you and myself, and 
which is due to us both as the votaries of freedom. I trust you will 
believe me, too, when I tell you that I entertain ever the liveliest 
sympathies in every struggle for liberty, in Hungary and in 
every country. And in this, I believe, I express the universal 
sentiment of my countrymen. But, sir, for the sake of my 



HENRY CLAY'S LAST SPEECH. 159 

country you must allow me to protest against the policy you 
propose to her. Waiving the grave and momentous question of 
the right of one nation to assume the executive power among 
nations for the enforcement of international law, or of the right 
of the United States to dictate to Russia the character of her 
relations with the nations around her, let us come at once to the 
practical consideration of the matter. You tell us yourself, with 
great truth and propriety, that mere sympathy, or the expression 
of sympathy, can not advance your purposes. You require ma- 
terial aid. And indeed it is manifest that the mere declarations 
of the sympathy of Congress, or of the president, or of the 
public, would be of little avail, unless we were prepared to en- 
force these declarations by a resort to arms, and unless other 
nations could see that preparation and determination upon our 
part. Well, sir, suppose that war should be the issue of the 
course you propose to us ; could we then effect any thing for you, 
ourselves, or the cause of liberty ? To transport men and arms 
across the ocean in sufficient numbers and quantities to be effec- 
tive against Russia and Austria would be impossible. It is a fact 
which perhaps may not be generally known, that the most im- 
perative reason with Great Britain for the close of her last war 
with us, was the immense cost of the transportation and main- 
tenance of forces and munitions of war on such a distant theater ; 
and yet she had not, perhaps, more than thirty thousand men 
upon this continent at any time. Upon land Russia is invulner- 
able to us, as we are to her. Upon the ocean, a war between 
Russia and this country would result in the mutual annoyance to 
commerce, but probably in little else. I learn recently that her 
war marine is superior to that of any nation in Europe, except 
perhaps Great Britain. Her ports are few, her commerce lim- 
ited ; while we, on our part, would offer as a prey to her cruisers 
a rich and extensive commerce Thus, sir, after effecting noth- 
ing in such a war ; after abandoning our ancient policy of amity 
and non-intervention in the affairs of other nations, and thus jus- 
tifying them in abandoning the terms of forbearance and non- 
interference which they have hitherto preserved toward us ; 
after the downfall, perhaps, of the friends of liberal institutions 
m Europe, — her despots, imitating and provoked by our fatal 
example, may turn upon us in the hour of our weakness and 
exhaustion, and, with an almost equally irresistible force of 
reason and of arms, they may say to us, " You have set us the 
example ; you have quit your own to stand on foreign ground ; 
you have abandoned the policy you professed in the day of your 
weakness, to interfere in the affairs of the people upon this con* 



160 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

tinent, in behalf of those principles the supremacy of which, you 
say, is necessary to your prosperity, to your existence. We, in 
our turn, believing that your anarchical doctrines are destructive 
of, and that monarchical principles are essential to, the peace, 
security, and happiness of our subjects, will obliterate the bed 
which has nourished such noxious weeds ; we will crush you, 
as the propagandists of doctrines so destructive of the peace and 
good order of the world." The indomitable spirit of our people 
might and would be equal to the emergency, and we might 
remain unsubdued even by so tremendous a combination ; but 
the consequences to us would be terrible enough. You must 
allow me, sir, to speak thus freely, as I feel deeply, though my 
opinion may be of but little import, as the expression of a 
dying man. 

Sir, the recent melancholy subversion of the republican gov- 
ernment of France, and that enlightened nation voluntarily 
placing its neck under the yoke of despotism, teach us to despair 
of any present success for liberal institutions in Europe ; it gives 
us an impressive warning not to rely upon others for the vindi- 
cation of our principles, but to look to ourselves, and to cherish 
with more care than ever the security of our institutions and the 
preservation of our policy and principles. By the policy to which 
we have adhered since the days of Washington, we have pros- 
pered beyond precedent ; we have done more for the cause of 
liberty in the world than arms could effect ; we have shown to 
other nations the way to greatness and happiness. And if we 
but continue united as one people, and persevere in the policy 
which our experience has so clearly and triumphantly vindicated, 
we may in another quarter of a century furnish an example 
which the reason of the world can not resist. But if we should 
involve ourselves in the tangled web of European politics, in a 
war in which we could effect nothing, and if in that struggle 
Hungary should go down, and we should go down with her, 
where then would be the last hope of the friends of freedom 
throughout the world ? Far better is it for ourselves, for Hun- 
gary, and for the cause of liberty, that, adhering to our wise 
pacific system, and avoiding the distant wars of Europe, we 
should keep our lamp burning brightly on this western shore, ag 
a light to all nations, than to hazard its utter extinction, amid tne 
ruins of fallen or falling republics in Europe. 



SPECIMEN OF KOSSUTH'S ELOQUENCE. Ifil 



Specimen of Kossuth' *s Eloquence, No. 1. 

A home and true friends are two of the fairest gifts of Heaven 
allotted to man on earth. The exiled chief of Hungary, who 
has now the honor to acknowledge your kindness, has no home, 
The soil upon which my cradle stood — the soil where I dreamed 
the short, rosy dreams of childhood, though even then inter 
rupted by the inspirations of the patriot's heart — the soil which 
saw me struggle and strive for my people's freedom, and for the 
independence of my native land — the soil to which I have de- 
voted my life, and for which I will readily die, — that soil is a 
valley of desolation now. The sanguinary tools of foreign vio- 
lence have polluted its sacred fields, watered by torrents of pat- 
riotic martyr blood. The fair land is a vast prison, wherein 
nature groans, and, though fettered, with clinched fists looks up 
to Heaven for the day of retribution and of deliverance. The 
storm of oppression, the clouds of tyranny, hang gloomily over 
the land. It has lost every thing, only not its honor — not its 
trust in God — not its hope for the future — not the manly reso- 
lution once more to rise in inexorable judgment over tyrants and 
oppressors. 

And O, how I love thee, my poor native land ! How I love 
thee in thy gloom ! How keenly thy sorrows affect my bleeding 
heart ! How I long for thee, my own dear native land, with the 
fond desire of an exile's heart ! Home of my people, which I 
left, and which God will once more lead on the path of glory 
and freedom ! home of my recollections — of my love ! I greet 
thee out of the very midst of thy generous friends of America, 
who, benevolent because free, stretch out their gigantic arms 
over the waves with consolation to thee, and shout out over the 
vast regions of this republic thy name with millions of tongues, 
in token that there is yet a future to this, because there is an 
America, free and powerful, watching the laws of nations, and 
ready to defend what despots dare to offend. 

Thus, though I have no home, yet the home of my people has 
good friends, who, with the aid of God, I hope will yet restore 
myself also to my home, that I may have at least a homely 
grave in which to lay down my weary head, that the sun of free- 
dom may cast its rays over the flower of memory which the 
kind remembrance of my people will plant over the grave of its 
faithful servant. 



162 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Specimen No. 2. 



I passed the last night in a sleepless dream. And my soul 
wandered, on the magnetic wings of the past, home tc my be- 
loved, bleeding land, and I saw, in the dead of the night, dark, 
veiled shapes, with the paleness of eternal grief upon their sad 
brows, but terrible in the tearless silence of that grief, gliding 
over the churchyards of Hungary, and kneeling down at the 
head of the graves, and depositing the pious tributes of green 
cypress upon them, and, after a short prayer, rising with 
clinched fists, and gnashing teeth, and then stealing away tear- 
less and silent as they came — stealing away because the blood- 
hounds of my country's murderers lurked from every corner on 
that night, and on this day, and led to prison those who dared to 
show a pious remembrance to the beloved. To-day a smile on 
the lips of a Magyar is taken for a crime of defiance to tyranny, 
and a tear in his eye equivalent to a revolt. And yet I have 
seen, with the eye of my home-wandering soul, thousands per- 
forming the work of patriotic virtue. 

And I saw more. When the pious offerers have stolen away, 
[ saw the honored dead, half risen from their tombs, looking to 
the offerings, and whispering gloomily, " Still a cypress, and 
still no flower of joy ! Is there still the chill of winter and the 
gloom of night over thee, fatherland ? Are we not yet re- 
venged ? " And the sky of the east reddened suddenly, and 
boiled with bloody flames, and from the far, far west, a lightning 
flashed like a star-spangled stripe, and within its light a young 
eagle mounted and soared towards the bloody flames of the east, 
and as he drew near, upon his approaching, the boiling flames 
changed into a radiant morning sun, and a voice from above was 
heard, in answer to the question of the dead, " Sleep yet a short 
while — mine is the revenge ! I will make the stars of the west 
the sun of the east ! and when ye next awake, you will find the 
flower of joy upon your cold bed." And the dead took the twig 
of cypress, the sign of resurrection, into their bony hands and 
lay down. 



Specimen No. 3. 

Farewell, my beloved country ! Farewell, land of the 
Magyars ! Farewell, thou land of sorrow ! I shall never more 
behold the summit of thy mountains. My last looks are fixed 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 163 

upon my country, and I see thee overwhelmed with anguish. - 
look mio the future, but that is overshadowed. 

Land of my love, thou art in slavery. From thy very bosom 
will be forged the chains to bind all that is sacred. I hoped for 
thee even in the dark moment when on thy brow was written the 
withering word, Despair. I lifted my voice in thy behalf when 
men said, " Be thou a slave." 

My principles have not been those of Washington, nor my 
acts those of Tell. I desired a free nation — free as man can 
not be made but by God. And thou art fallen ; faded as the 
lily. The united forces of powerful nations have dug thy tomb 
the withering grasp of tyranny has seized upon thy vitals, and 
O, my country, the blighting curse of oppression is upon thee. 



Marco Bozzaris,— 



At midnight, in his guarded tent, 

The Turk was dreaming of the hour 
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent. 

Should tremble at his power : 
In dreams, through camp and court, he bore 
The trophies of a conqueror ; 

In dreams his song of triumph heard ; 
Then wore his monarch's signet ring ; 
Then pressed that monarch's throne, — a king 
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing, 

As Eden's garden bird 

At midnight, in the forest shades, 

Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band, 
True as the steel of their tried blades, 

Heroes in heart and hand. 
There had the Persian's thousands stood, 
There had the glad earth drunk their blood 

On old Platsea's day ; 
And now there breathed that haunted air 
The sons of sires who conquered there, 
With arm to strike, and soul to dare, 

As quick, as far as they. 

An hour passed on — the Turk awoke - 
That bright dream was his last ; 



i$4 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

He woke — to hear his sentries shriek, 
" To arms ! they come ! the Greek ! the Greed. ! ■ 
He woke — to die 'midst flame, and smoke, 
And shout, and groan, and saber stroke, 

And death shots falling thick and fast 
As lightnings from the mountain cloud ; 
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud, 

Bozzaris cheer his band : 
" Strike — till the last armed foe expires , 
Strike — for your altars and your fires ; 
Strike — for the green graves of your sires ; 

God — and your native land ! " 

They fought, like brave men, long and well : 

They piled that ground with Moslem slain , 
They conquered — but Bozzaris fell, 

Bleeding at every vein. 
His few surviving comrades saw 
His smile when rang their proud hurrah, 

And the red field was won ; 
Then saw in death his eyelids close 
Calmly, as to a night's repose, 

Like flowers at set of sun. 

Come to the bridal chamber, Death ! 

Come to the mother, when she feels, 
For the first time, her first bom's breath ; 

Come when the blessed seals 
That close the pestilence are broke, 
And crowded cities wail its stroke ; 
Come in consumption's ghastly form, 
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm ; 
Come when the heart beats high and warm, 

With banquet song, and dance, and wine ; 
And thou art terrible — the tear, 
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier ; 
And all we know, or dream, 01 fear 

Of agony, are thine. 

But to the hero, when his sword 

Has won the battle for the free, 
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's work ; 
And in its hollow tones are heard 

The thanks of millions vet to be. 



THE POET. 165 



Bozzaris ! with the storied brave 
Greece nurtured in her glory's time, 

Rest thee — there is no prouder grave, 

Even in her own proud clime. 
We tell thy doom without a sigh, 

For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame't 

One of the few, the immortal names, 
That were not born to die. 



The Poet. — Sarah j. Clabxb. 

(a pasody on mabco bozzabjs.) 

At midnight, in his cottage small, 

The bard was dreaming of the times 
When cheerily from camp and hall 

Rang out the minstrel's rhymes : 
In dreams through courtly scenes he roved 
In dreams a royal mistress loved ; 

In dreams he clasped her as his bride ; 
Then revelled at the board of kings, 
Bedecked with ribbons, stars, and rings , 
And ever woke his harp's wild strings 

To notes of joy and pride ! 

At midnight, in the court beneath, 

The sheriff ranged a savage band, 
Following their game up to the death 

With murderous notes of hand. 
There was the draper, trim and neat, 
There was the burly man of meat, 

Landlord, and tailors four, — 
Bound on an errand all unblest, 
Like envious cranes met to molest, 
With their long bills, a skylark's nest 

They thronged the poet's door. 

An hour passed on — the bard awoke ; 

That poet-dream was past ; 
He wakened to a cry of fear — 
Of " Hide, dear Tom ; the sheriff's here ! * 
He woke to find himself safe hid 
Beneath a meal chest's friendly lid • 
H 



166 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

To mutter sacres, fierce and fast, 
On baffled foes that round him crowd, 
And hear, in accents sharp and loud, 

The sheriff cheer his band ! 
Searcn — till each closet is explored , 
Search, landlord — for thy bill of board 
Search — for the wines against him scored \ 

And, tailors, lend a hand ! 

They sought, like Shylocks, long and hard, 

Around, beneath, and overhead ; 
But vainly all — they left the bard 

Snug in his mealy bed. 
Then his indignant Susan saw 
Those shameless wreckers of the law 

Had nabbed his Sunday coat ; 
She saw the fearful look he wore, 
As then and there he roundly swore 
To leave his thankless native shore, 

Upon that morning's boat ! 



On Mr. Clay's Resolutions. — Webster, 

And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possi- 
bility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in these caverns 
of darkness, instead of groping with those ideas so full of all 
that is horrid and horrible, let us come out into the light of day ; 
let us enjoy the fresh air of liberty and union ; let us cherish 
those hopes which belong to us ; let us devote ourselves to those 
great objects that are fit for our consideration and our action ; 
let us raise our conceptions to the magnitude and the importance 
of the duties that devolve upon us ; let our comprehension be as 
broad as the country for which we act, our aspirations as high 
as its certain destiny ; let us not be pygmies in a case that calls 
for men. Never did there devolve on any generation of men 
higher trusts than now devolve upon us, for the preservation of 
this constitution, and the harmony and peace of all who are 
destined to live under it. Let us make our generation one of 
the strongest and brightest links in that golden chain, which is 
destined, 1 'ondlv believe, to grapple the people of al? the states 
lo this con*immon for ages to come. 

We have a p-eat, popular, constitutional government, guarded 
by law and by judicature, and defended by the whole affections 



JUSTICE TO THE WHOLE COUNTRY. 167 

uf the people. No monarchical throne presses these states 
together ; no iron chain of military power encircles them ; they 
live and stand upon a government popular in its form, repre- 
sentative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, 
and so constructed, we hope, as to last forever. In all its history 
it has been beneficent ; it has trodden down no man's liberty — 
it has crushed no state. Its daily respiration is liberty and pa- 
triotism ; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage, 
and honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, the 
country has now, by recent events, become vastly larger. This 
republic now extends, with a vast breadth, across the whole con- 
tinent. The two great seas of the world wash the one and the 
other shore. We realize, on a mighty scale, the beautiful 
description of the ornamental edging of the buckler of Achilles, — 

" Now the broad shield complete, the artist crowned 
With his last hand, and poured the ocean round : 
In living silver seemed the waves to roll, 
And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole." 



Justice to the Whole Country.— Webster, 

I think, sir, the country calls upon us loudly and impera- 
tively to settle this question. I think that the whole world is 
looking to see whether this great popular government can get 
through such a crisis. We are the observed of all observers. 
It is not to be disputed or doubted that the eyes of all Christen- 
dom are upon us. We have stood through many trials. Can 
we stand through this, which takes so much the character of a 
sectional controversy ? Can we stand that ? There is no in- 
quiring man in all Europe who does not ask himself that ques 
tion every day, when he reads the intelligence of the morning 
Can this country, with one set of interests at the south, and 
another set of interests at the north, — these interests supposed, 
but falsely supposed, to be at variance, — can this people see, 
what is so evident to the whole world beside, that this Union is 
their main hope and greatest benefit, and that their interests are 
entirely compatible ? Can they see, and will they feel, that their 
prosperity, their respectability among the nations of the earth, 
and their happiness at home, depend upon the maintenance of 
their union and their constitution ? That is the question, i 
agree that local divisions are apt to overturn the understandings 



168 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

of men, and to excite a belligerent feeling between section and 
section. It is natural, in times of irritation, for one part of the 
country to say, " If you do that," I will do this, and so get up a 
feeling of hostility and defiance. Then comes belligerent legis- 
lation, and then an appeal to arms. The question is, whether we 
have the true patriotism, the Americanism, necessary to carry 
us through such a trial. The whole world is looking towards us, 
with extreme anxiety. 

For myself, I propose, sir, to abide by the principles and the 
purposes which I have avowed. I shall stand by the Union, and 
by all who stand by it. I shall do justice to the whole country, 
according to the best of my ability, in all I say, and act for 
the good of the whole country in all I do. I mean to stand upon 
the constitution. I need no other platform. I shall know but 
one country. The ends I aim at shall be my Country's, my 
God's, and Truth's. I was born an American ; I live an Amer- 
ican ; I shall die an American ; and I intend to perform the 
duties incumbent upon me in that character to the end of 
my career. I mean to do this, with absolute disregard of per- 
sonal consequences. What are personal consequences ? What 
is the individual man, with all the good or evil that may betide 
him, in comparison with the good or evil which may befall a 
great country in a crisis like this, and in the midst of great 
transactions which concern that country's fate ? Let the con- 
sequences be what they will, I am careless. No man can 
suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon, if he suffer, 
or if he fall, in defence of the liberties and constitution of his 
country. 



All for Good Order.— D. p. Pagk. 

Characters. — Schoolmaster ; — Isaac, a schoolboy ; — Mb. Fosdick ; 
Bill, his son ; — Mrs. O'Clary, (Irish ;) Patrick, her son ; — 'Squire 
Snyder ; Jonas, his son ; — Saunders, a drunken fellow ; Jabez, his 
son ; — some half dozen schoolboys. 

Master. {Setting copies alone.) Well, so here I am again, 
after another night's sleep. But, sleep or no sleep, I feel about 
as much fatigued in the morning as I do at night. It is impos- 
sible to get the cares and anxieties of my profession out of my 
mind. It does seem to me that the parents of some of my 
pupils are very unfeeling ; for I know I have done my very best 
to keep a good school, and however I may have failed in some 
instances I have the satisfaction of feeling, in my conscience, 



ALL FOR GOOD ORDER. 16<* 

that my best endeavors have been devoted to my work. — A 
merry lot of copies here, to be set before school time. {Looking 
at his watch.) But " a diligent hand will accomplish much." 
By the way, that will do for a copy for Jonas Snyder — little 
culprit! He was very idle yesterday. (Thinking and busy.) 
What can that story mean, which Mr. Truetell told me this 
morning ? Five or six ! — who could they be ? — five or six of 
the parents of my scholars dreadfully offended ! Let me see : 
What have I done ? Nothing very lately, that I recollect. Let's 
see ; yesterday ? No, there was nothing yesterday, except that I 
detained the class in geography till they got their lessons. O, 
yes ; Jonas Snyder was punished for idleness. But I spoke to 
him four or five times, and he would do nothing but whisper, 
and whittle his bench ; and when at last he half ate up an apple, 
and threw the rest at Jacob Readslow, I thought he deserved it. 
Let's see: I gave him six claps — three on each hand. Well, 
he did not get more than his deserts. (Enter one of the schol- 
ars, with his hooks under his arm, walking slowly, and eying 
the master, to his seat. Master, still busy, and thinking, by and 
by says,) Isaac, you may come to me. 

(He walks along, and says,) Sir ! 

Master. Do you remember (placing his pen over his ear, 
and turning earnestly and portentously round) whether I pun- 
ished any scholars yesterday ? 

Isaac. Yes, sir ; you feruled Jone Snyder, for playing and 
laughing. 

Master, Did I punish any one else ? 

Isaac. Not as I recollect. 

Master. Think, Isaac ; think carefully. 

Isaac. You kept a lot of us after school, for not saying our 
lessons 

Master. (Quickly.) You mean, Isaac, rather, I kept you to 
get your lessons, which you had neglected. 

Isaac. Yes, sir ; and you made Patrick O'Clary stop and 
sweep, because he staid out too late after recess. 

Master. O, yes ; I remember that. 

Isaac. He was as mad as a hop about it ; he said he meant 
to tell his mother that you made him sweep for nothing. 

Master. Hush ! hush ! You shouldn't tell tales. Do you 
remember any other punishments ? 

Isaac. No, sir ; not yesterday. You hit Jab° Saunders a 
clip across the knuckles, with the cowskin, day befu**<~ yester- 
day. Don't you remember ? Just as he stretched 0'it his 
hand to hook that old rag upon Tom Willis's collar, you came 



170 KOSS'S SPEAKER. 

along behind him, and clip went the old whip, right across hia 
fingers, and down went the old rag. There, I never was more 
glad to see any thing in my life ! Little dirty, mean fellow ! — 
he's always sticking things upon fellows. I saw him once pin 
an old dirty rag upon a man's coat, just as he was putting a 
letter into the post office. I never saw such a fellow ! 

( The other boys coming in gradually, the master rings his 
little bell, and says,) Boys, come to order, and take your books. 
Now, boys, I wish to see if we can't have a good school to-dav. 
Let's see : are we all here ? 

Boys. No, sir ! No, sir ! 

Master. Who is absent ? 

Boys. Jone Snyder ! Jabe Saunders ! Patrick O'Clary ! 
and 

Master. Speak one at a time, my boys. Don't make confu- 
sion, to begin with; — and, {looking around them,) — O, Bill 
Fosdick, — only four ! 

One of the boys. Pat O'Clary is late. I saw him down in 
Baker Street, poking along. He always comes late 

Master. Did he say he was coming ? 

Same Boy. I asked him if he was coming to school, and he 
shook his head, and muttered out something about his mother, 
and I ran along and left him. 

Master. Well, boys, now let us try to have a still school 
and close study to-day, and see if it is not more pleasant to 
learn than to play. (Rises and walks to and fro on the stage.) 
Take the geography lesson, James and Samuel, first thing this 
morning ; and, Isaac, I don't wish to detain you again to-day. 
(Loud knock at the door.) 

(Enter Bill Fosdick, walking importantly and consequentially 
up to the master, and says,) Here ! father wants to see you at 
the door ! 

(Master turns to go to the door, followed by Bill, who wishes 
to hear all thafs said, and Mr. Fosdick, looking quite savage, 
steps right inside, the master politely bowing, with a " good 
morning." 

Fosdick. Here, sir ; I want to see you about my boy. 1 
don't like to have you keep him after school every day ; I want 
him at home, — and I should like to have you dismiss him when 
school is done. If he wants lick in', lick him — that's all; but 
don't you k^ep him here an hour or two every day after school. 
I don't send lim here for that ! 

Master. But, my good s*r, 1 have not often detained him 
not more than twice within a fort 




ALL FOR (X)OD ORDER. 17\ 

Fos. Well, don't you do it again — that's all ! 

Master. But, sir, I have only detained him to learn the les- 
sons which he might learn in school ; and surely, if 

Fos. Well, well, sir! don't you do it again! — that's all I 
have to say ! If he behaves bad, you lick him — only do it in 
reason. But when school is done, I want him dismissed. 

Master. Sir, I do what I conceive to be my duty ; and I 
serve all my scholars alike ; and while I would be willing to ac- 
commodate you, I shall do what I think is my duty. (Gathering 
spirit and gravity, and advancing.) Sir, do I understand you 
wish me to whip your son for not getting his lesson ? 

Fos. Yes — no — yes — in reason ; I don't want my chil- 
dren's bones broke. 

Master. ( Taking from, the desk a cowhide.) Do you prefer 
your son should be whipped to being detained ? 

Fos. I don't think not getting his lessons is such a dreadful 
crime. I never used to get my lessons, and old Master Pepper- 
mint never used to lick me, and I am sure he never kept me 
after school ; but we used to have schools good for sumfin in 
them days. — Bill, go to your seat, and behave yourself; and 
when school is done, you come home. That's all I have to say. 

Master. But stop, my boy! (Speaking to Bill, decidedly.) 
There happen to be two sides to this question. There is some- 
thing further to be said, before you go to your seat in this 
school. 

Fos. What ! you don't mean to turn him out of school, du 
ye ? (Somebody knocks.) 

(A boy steps to the door, and in steps Mrs. 0' Clary, who, 
approaching Fosdick, says,) Is it you that's the schoolmaster, 
sure ? It's I that's after spaking to the schoolmaster. ( Cur- 
tesying.) 

Fos. No ; I'm no schoolmaster. 

Master. What is your wish, madam ? 

Mrs. 0' Clary. I wants to spake with the schoolmaster, 1 do, 
~ir. (Curtesies.) 

Master. Well, madam, (rapping to keep the boys still, who 
are disposed to laugh,) I arn the schoolmaster. What is your 
wl-h ? 

Mrs. O'C. Why, sir, my little spalpeen of a son goes to this 
school, he does : and he savs he's made to swape every day, he 
is ; and it's all for nothing, he tills me ; and sure I don't like it, 
[don't; and I'm kirn to complain to ye, 1 have. It's Patrick 
O'Clary that I'm spaking of; and it's I that's his mither, I be ; 
and his poor father was Paddy O'Clary from Cork, it was — rest 
his sowl ! 



172 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Master. We 1, madam, he has never swept but once, I believe , 

and that, surely, was not without a good reason. 

Mrs. 0' C. But himself tills a different story, he does ; and J 
niver knew him till but one lie in my life, I didn't ; and that 
was as good as none. But the little spalpeen shall be after 
tilling his own stowry, he shall ; for it's he that's waiting in the 
entry, and will till ye no lie, at all, at all, — upon that ye may 
depind ; though it's his mither that says it, and sure! (Calls.) 
Patrick ! Patrick ! Patrick ! My dear, here's your mither 
wants ye to come in, and till master how it's you that's kept to 
swape ivry day, and it's all for nothing, it is. Come in, I say, 
in a jiffy ! (Patrick, scratching his head, enters.) Here's your 
mither, dear : now till your master, — and till the truth, — didn't 
ye till your mither that ye had to swape ivry day for nothing ; 
and it's you that's going to be kept swaping ivry day for a 
month to come, and sure ? 

Master. Now tell the truth, Patrick. 

Patrick. (Looking at his mother.) No ; I niver said no 
such words, and sure. I said how I's kept to swape yisterday, 
for staying out too late ; and that's all I said 'bout it, at all, 
at all. 

Mrs. O' C. " Cush la macree ! " Little sonny, how you talk ! 
He's frightened, he is, and sure. ( Turning to Fosdick.) He's 
always bashful before company, he is. But, master, it's I that 
don't like to have him made to swape the school, indade ; and if 
you can do nothing else, I shall be in sad taking, I shall, and 
sure. If you should be after bating him, I should make no 
complaint ; for I bates him myself, whiniver he lies to his mither 
— a little spalpeen that he is. But I can't bear to have him 
made to do the humbling work of swaping, at all, at all ; and 
it's I that shall make a " clish ma claver," an' it's not stopped — 
indade I shall. (Somebody knocks.) 

(Isaac steps to the door, and returning, says,) 'Squire Sny- 
der wishes to see you, sir. 

Master. (Smiling.) Well, ask Mr. Snyder to step in. We 
may as well have a regular court of it. 

(Isaac waits upon him in, leading Jonas, with his hands 
poulticed.) 

Master. (Smiling.) Good morning, Mr. Snyder; — walk 
in, sir. 

Mr. Snyder. (Rather gentlemanly.) I hope you will excuse 
my interrupting your school ; but I called to inquire what Jonas, 
here, could have lone, that you bruised him up at such a rate 
Poor little fellow ! he came home, taking on a* if his heart 



ALL FOE, GOOD ORDER. 173 

would break ; and both his hands swelled up bigger than mine ; 
and he said you had been beating him for nothing. I thought 
Pd come up and inquire into it ; for I don't hold to this banging 
and abusing children, and especially when they haven't done 
any thing ; though I'm a friend to good order. 

M<"i p r. I was not aware that I punished him very severe- 
ly, su. 

Mr. Snyder. O, it was dreadfully severe. Why, the poor 
little fellow's hands pained him so, that his mother had to poultice 
them, and sit up with him all night ; and this morning she 
wanted to come up to school with him herself; but I told her I 
guessed she better let me come. Jonas, do your hands ache 
now, dear ? 

Jonas. {Holding them ooth out together.) O, dreadfully ! 
They feel as if they were in the fire. 

Mr. Snyder. Well, dear, keep composed ; don't cry, dear. 
Now, sir, {addressing the master,) this was all for nothing. 

Master. No, sir. It was for something, I am thinking. 

Jonas. I say I did not do nothing; so there, now. {Some 
body knocks.) 

Master. Gentlemen, sit down. {Looking perplexed.) Sit 
down, madam. Give me a little time, and I'll endeavor to set 
the matter right. (All sitting down but the boys.) 

Mr. Snyder. Why, I don't wish to make a serious matter of 
it I shan't prosecute you. I was only going to ask if you 
couldn't devise some other kind of punishment than pommeling. 
If you'd made him stop after school, or set him to sweeping the 
house, or scouring the benches, or even whipped him with a 
cowhide or a switch stick, I should not have complained ; but 1 
don't like this beating boys. {Knocking again.) 

Master. Isaac, go and see who is at the door. {Isaac goes, 
and in stalks Saunders, with his son Jabez.) 

Saunders. {Bowing and flourishing.) Here! halloo! Here, 
I say, Mr. Schoolmaster, settle up the score as ye goes along. 
I say, {snatching a cowhide,) you have been horsewhipping my 
boy here, hain't you ? By the fifteen gallon law, you don't 
come that game over the son of Nehemiah Saunders, you see, 

you pale-faced, good-for-nothing But pardon me, master ; 

I ax your pardon ; for 'Miah Saunders always was, and always 
will be, a gentleman. — Ye see, — don't ye see ? — {hiccough- 
ing — lifts off his hat,) — ye see — 1*11 tell ye what, master — 
if I'd only known it yesterday, ye see, I'd a been here and — ■ 
but — ye see — yesterday — I was verj particularly engaged — 



174 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

but now {approaching, and switching the cowhide,) ye see 
we'll know who's the strongest. I'll give you 

Mrs. O'C. (Screeching.) La ! what shall I do ? If there's 
a going to be fighting, by St. Patrick, I shall go into hysterics. 
— O dear ! dear ! dear ! 

Master. O, don't be frightened, madam. 

Saunders. (Looking at the woman.) O, ha, ha! Why, 
Cathleen O'Clary — ye see — why, have you left your washtub 
to go to school ? Why, bless my heart ! Why, ye see, bless 
me ! — the master here will have a most tractable pupil in you, 
Cathleen. Why, my stars ! ye see — and here is neighbor Fos- 
dick : why, how de du, neighbor Fosdick ? (Bowing very low 
to Snyder.) How do you do, 'Squire Snyder ? Why, I hope I 
hain't been disturbing a court, nor nothing. (Rubbing his head, 
fyc.) The truth is, I felt dreadfully provoked, when I heard 
that master here had been whipping my son with a raw hide, like 
a horse ; and says I, I don't sleep till I have whipped him — and 
all for nothing, too! — I've nothing against licking, Mr. School- 
master, if you use the right kind of licking. Ferule a boy, or 
give him a stick, till he cries " Enough ! " but none of your 
horsewhipping, I say ! — ye see — I can't stand that ! (During 
this speech, Jabe archly hangs an old rag upon his fathers coat, 
and steps back, and laughs at it.) 

Mr. Fosdick. (Wfio saw it.) Mr. Saunders, what is that 
you've got upon your coat ? (Examining.) 

Saunders. On my coat, — where? (Looks, and after a 
while finds it, and says, in awful rage,) " Who did that ? " 

Fos. It was your hopeful son, there. 

Saunders. You little villain of a scamp ! (Attempting to hit 
him with the whip, but staggering, fails.) I'll whip the hide all 
off of you, I will. Master, he's in your house ; order him to 
me, and I'll show you how to use the cowhide ! 

Master. Be calm, sir ; be calm. Will you be good enough 
to sit down ? You are a gentleman, you say ; then oblige me 
by sitting down between these two gentlemen. 

Saunders. That I will. I'll oblige any gentleman. (After 
many attempts, gets to the seat.) 

Master. And now, gentlemen, and (bowing) madam, I think 
we may each of us begin to see the beauty of variety, especially 
in the matter of opinion. That you ma\ all understand the 
whole case, 1 will state, in a few words, the facts, as they actu- 
ally occurred. Day lefore yesterday, our young friend Jabez 
(pointing to frim) was playing his favorite trick of hanging his 
rag signal upon a schoolmate, after th<* fashion in w'nch he ha« 



ALL FOR GOOD ORDER. 175 

here so filially served nis father, within a few minutes ; and 
standing near him at the time, with my whip in hand, I could 
not resist the temptation to salute his mischievous knuckles with 
a well-directed stroke, which, however effectually it may have 
cut his own fingers and his father's sensibilities, it seems has not 
cut off his ruling propensity. Yesterday was emphatically a 
day of sinning on my part. Jonas Snyder, whose little hands 
have swelled to such enormous magnitude, for constant idleness 
was often reproved ; and after all this, when he threw a portion 
of an apple at a more industrious boy, thus disturbing many of 
those well-disposed boys, he was called and feruled, receiving 
six strokes — three on each hand — with the rule I now show 
you. Little Patrick O'Clary was required to sweep the school- 
room floor for a strong instance of tardiness at recess ; and this 
punishment was given because I did not wish to inflict a severer 
one upon so small a lad. And last, this little fellow {pointing to 
Bill Fosdick) was detained, in common with seven others, to 
learn a lesson which he neglected to learn at the proper time. 

Such are the facts. And yet each of you has assured me 
that I have incurred your displeasure by using a punishment you 
disapprove, and " all for nothing." You have each one taken 
the trouble to come to this room, to render my task — already 
sufficiently perplexing — still more so by giving parental sup- 
port to childish complaints, and imparting your censure, in no 
measured terms, upon the instructor of your children. But this 
is a most interesting case. You all happen to be here together, 
and you thus give me the opportunity I have long wished, to 
show you your own inconsistencies. 

It is easy to complain of your teach ?r ; but perhaps either of 
you, in your wisdom, would find it not quite so easy to take my 
place and escape censure. How would either of you have got 
along in the present instance ? Mr. Fosdick, who is displeased 
with detention after school, would have, according to his own 
recommendation, resorted to " licking," either with ferule or 
whip. In this case, he would have incurred the censure of his 
friends, 'Squire Snyder and Mr. Saunders. The squire, in 
turn, would have raised the displeasure of both his friends, by 
resorting to his favorite mode of detaining and cowhiding. 
Mistress O'Clary would give the " spalpeens " a " bating," as she 
says, after her own peculiar fashion, with which the squire and 
Mr. Saunders could not have been over-much pleased. And 
Mr. Saunders — ay, Mr. 'Miah Saunders — if we may judge 
from the exhibition he has just given us, would have displeased 
isven himself, by proving to be what he most of all things detests 



176 KOSS'S SPEAKER. 

— a champion of the cowhide. But what is a little curious, as 
it appears, is, that while I have not carried out the favorite 
scheme of either one of you, — which, we have already seen, 
would be objectionable to each of the others, — but have adopted 
a variety of punishments, and the very variety which your own 
collective suffrage would fix upon, I have got myself equally 
deep into hot water ; and the grand question is now, what shall 
I do ? If I take the course suggested by you collectively, the 
result is the same. I see no other way but to take my own 
course, performing conscientiously my duties, in their time and 
after their manners, and then to demand of you, and all others, 
the right of being sustained. 

Saunders. (Jumping up.) Them is my sentiments, exactly 
Ye see — I say — ye see — you go ahead, and — ye see — whip 
that little rascal of mine — ye see — just as much as you've a 
mind to, — (turning to the squire, who is rising,) — and you 
shall have this whip to do it with. (Handing it to the master.) 

Mr. Snyder. Well, gentlemen, my opinion is, that we have 
been tried and condemned by our own testimony, and there is 
no appeal. My judgment approves the master ; and hereafter I 
shall neither hear nor make any more complaints. Jonas, (turn- 
ing to Jonas,) my son, if the master is willing, you may go 
home and tell your mother to take off those poultices, and then 
do you come to school and do as you are told ; and if I hear of 
any more of your complaints, I will double the dose you may 
receive at school. 

Mrs. CPC. And sure, master, tne wife of Paddy O'Clary is 
not the woman to resist authority in the new country ; and bless 
your sowl, if you'll make my little spalpeen but a good boy, it's 
I that will kindly remember the favor, though ye make him 
swape until nixt Christmas. Here, Patrick, down upon the little 
knees of your own, and crave the master's forgiveness ; for it's 
not Cathleen O'Clary 

Master. No, madam ; that I shall not allow. I ask no one 
to kneel to me. I shall only require that he correct his past 
faults, and obey me in future. 

Mrs. 0' C. It's an ungrateful child he would be, if ever again 
he should be after troubling so kind a master. St. Patrick bless 
ye. (Taking little Pat by the hand, they go out.) 

Fos. ( Taking the master by the hand, pleasantly.) Sir, 1 
hope I shall profit by this day's lesson. I have only to say, that 
I am perfectly satisfied we are all wrong ; and that is, perhaps 
the best assurance I can give you that I think you are right 
That's all I have tc say. 



THE BIGHTEOUS NEVEE, FORSAKEN. IT} 

Saunders. Right ! right ! neighbor Fosdick. We are all — 
ye see — we are all come out on the wrong side this time ; ain't 
we squire ? I tell ye what, Mr. Schoolmaster, — 'Miah Saun- 
ders never is ashamed to back out (suits the action, SfC.) when 
he's wrong. I says, I — ye see — 'Miah Saunders is all for 
good order. Whip that boy of mine — ye see — as much as 
you please. I'll not complain again — ye see ; — whip him — 
says 1 — ye see — whip him, and I — tell ye — if 'Miah Saun- 
ders don't back ye up — then, ye see — may I be chosen presi- 
dent of — Cold Water Society. (Exeunt.) 



The Righteous never forsaken, — ahow. 

It was Saturday night, and the widow of the pine cottage sat 
by her blazing fagots with her five tattered children at her side, 
endeavoring, by listening to the artlessness of their prattle, to 
dissipate the heavy gloom that pressed upon her mind. For a 
year, her own feeble hands had provided for her helpless family, 
for she had no supporter : she thought of no friend in all the 
wide, unfriendly world around. 

But that mysterious Providence, the wisdom of whose ways 
are above human comprehension, had visited her with wasting 
sickness, and her little means had become exhausted. It was 
now, too, midwinter, and the snow lay heavy and deep through 
all the surrounding forests, while storms still seemed gathering in 
the heavens, and the driving wind roared amidst the bounding 
pines, and rocked her puny mansion. 

The last herrmg smoked upon the coals before her ; it was 
the only article of food she possessed ; and no wonder her for- 
lorn, desolate state brought up in her lone bosom all the anxie- 
ties of a mother, when she looked upon her children ; and no 
wonder, forlorn as she was, if she suffered the heart swellings 
of despair to rise, even though she knew that He whose promise 
is to the widow and to the orphan can not forget his word. 

Providence had many years before taken from her her eldest 
son, who went from his forest home to try his fortune on the 
nigh seas, since which she had heard no note or tidings of him ; 
and in latter time, had, by the hand of death, deprived her of 
the companion and staff of her earthly pilgrimage, in the person 
of her husband. Yet to this hour she had been upborne ; she 
had not only been able to provide for her little flock, but had 
never lost an opportunity of ministering to the wants of the 
miserable and destitute- 



J7S BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

The indolent may well bear with poverty, while the ability to 
gain sustenance remains. The individual who has but his own 
wants to supply may suffer with fortitude the winter of want ; 
his affections are no + wounded, his heart not wrung. The most 
desolate in populous cities may hope ; for Charity has not quite 
closed her hand and heart, and shut her eyes on misery. Put 
the industrious mother of helpless and depending children, 
far from the reach of human charity, has none of these to con- 
sole her. 

And such an one was the widow of the pine cottage ; but as 
she bent over the fire, and took up the last scanty remnant of 
food, to spread before her children, her spirits seemed to brighten 
up, as by some sudden and mysterious impulse, and Cowper's 
beautiful lines came uncalled across her mind — 

" Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, 
But trust him for his grace ; 
Behind a frowning providence 
He hides a smiling face." 

The smoked herring was scarcely laid upon the table, when 
a gentle rap at the door, and the loud barking of a dog, attracted 
the attention of the family. The children flew to open it, and 
a weary traveler, in tattered garments, and apparently indif- 
ferent health, entered and begged a lodging, and a mouthful of 
food. Said he, u It is now twenty-four hours since I tasted 
bread." The widow's heart bled anew as under a fresh com- 
plication of distresses; for her sympathies lingered not round 
her fireside. She hesitated not even now ; rest and a share of 
all she had she proffered to the stranger. " We shall not be for- 
saken," said she, " or suffer deeper for an act of charity." 

The traveler drew near the board ; but when he saw the 
scanty fare, he raised his eyes towards heaven with astonish- 
ment. " And is this all your store ? " said he, " and a share 
of this do you offer to one you know not ? Then never saw I 
charity before. But, madam," said he, continuing, " do you not 
wrong your children by giving a part of your last mouthful to a 
stranger ? " 

" Ah," said the poor widow, — and the tear drops gushed into 
her eyes as she said it, — "I have a boy, a darling son, some- 
where on the face of the wide world, unless Heaven has taken 
him away, and I only act toward you as I would that others 
should act toward him. God, who sent manra from heaven, 
can provide for us as he did for Israel ; and how should I this 
night offend him, if my son should he a wandere:, dost«t :te as 



THE TOMB OF WASHINGTON. 179 

you, and he should have provided for him a home, even nooi as 
this — were I to turn you unrelieved away ! " 

The widow ended, and the stranger, springing from his seat, 
clasped her in his arms — " God indeed has provided your son a 
home, and has given him wealth to reward the goodness of his 
benefactress. My mother ! O my mother ! " 

It was her long lost son, returned to her bosom from the 
Indies. He had chosen that disguise that he might the more 
completely surprise his family ; and never was surprise more 
perfect, or followed by a sweeter cup of joy. That humble 
residence in the forest was exchanged for one comfortable, and 
indeed beautiful, in the valley, and the widow lived long with 
her dutiful son, in the enjoyment of worldly plenty, and in the 
delightful employments of virtue, and at this day the passer by is 
pointed to the willow that spreads its branches above her grave. 



The Tomb of Washington. — anon. 

Passing from the house, down a rude and neglected pathway, 
and then over a little broken, but already verdant ground, we 
came to an open space, and found ourselves standing before the 
humble tomb of George Washington. It was a happy moment 
to visit the spot. There was something in the time fortunate for 
the feelings. The very elements seemed in accordance with 
the season. The day was beautiful ; the sunlight was stream- 
ing full upon the trees round about, and glowing with a mellow 
beam upon the grave. The place was quiet and embosomed ; 
and the only sound that we heard, save that of our own hearts, 
was the voice of the wind through the pines, or of the waters as 
they broke upon the shore below us. 

Who can analyze his feelings as he stands before that sepul- 
cher ! Who can tell the story of his associations, or do any 
justice, by his tongue or his pen, to the emotions which the 
memories of the past awaken there ! The history of a whole 
country is overpowering him at once. Its struggles, its dark- 
ness, its despair, its victory, rush upon him. Its gratitude, 
its glory, and its loss pass before him, and in a few moments 
he lives through an age of interest and wonder. Strange power 
\>f human mind ! What an intimation does this rapid com- 
munion with the past, and with the spirits of the past, give, at 
once, of their immortality and our own ! But it is vain to follow 
dut these feelings here. They would fill volumes. 



180 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

There h no inscription upon the tomb. The simple wir<?3 

" Washington Family," chiseled in granite, surmounts the 
plain brick work. The masonry was originally wretched, and 
the plaster is now falling from it. The door is well secured, 
and of iron. There is a total absence of every thing like 
parade or circumstance about the resting-place of the hero. 
He sleeps there in the midst of the very simplicities of nature. 
Laurel trees wave over his dust, on every side, and the pilgrim 
who goes to stand by his grave finds no careful enclosure to 
forbid his too near approach. In short, Washington rests in an 
obscurity — just that obscurity which he would have chosen, but 
which seems hardly compatible with the vast gratitude and deep 
reverence of a great country. 

As we were standing upon this spot, a couple of spaniels 
came bounding along, and following close was an old servant 
of the family, and formerly a slave of Washington. On exam- 
ining him, we found he was born on the place, and recollected 
his master, and all he said, with great distinctness. He was a 
very aged negro, and quite gray. 

I found there was something to be gathered from this ancient 
of the family, and accordingly, as I stood leaning upon the 
broken gate, which swung before the door of the old tomb, put 
him in the train by a few questions. " In from of the new 
grave-place yonder," said he, " lie buried a hundred people of 
color." These, it seemed, were slaves of the plantation, whe 
from time to time had died here. 

He spoke of the great kindness of Washington, and his 
emancipating a hundred of his people. " His wife did the 
same," added he. There were now, he said, but about fifteen 
attached to the establishment. Passing from one thing to 
another without much connection, he went on to say, referring 
to Washington — "I never see that man laugh to show his teeth 
— he done all his laughing inside" This I thought worth a 
page of description. 

We then recurred to Lafayette's visit in 1825. " We were 
obliged to tote him all about," said he ; by which I understood 
that the general was so overcome, that he was literally sup- 
ported by the arms of attendants. I inquired how he appeared 
at the tomb. " He cried like a little infant." " Did he go in ? " 
I asked. " O, yes — he went in, sir — alone — and he made a 
mighty long talk there — but I don't know what it was about." 

All these little things were jewels. I loved to haar such 
simple narrations, from such a source, and it was with reluc- 
tance I turned away, after gathering a relic or two, a»d followed 



ANECDOTE OF JUDGE MARSHALL. 181 

our old guide up to the house again. But we had seen all we 
could see, and after glancing at the garden and greenhouse, 
which appeared in all the coming beauty of spring., and turning 
one more melancholy gaze upon the cluster of buildings, which 
had once been improved by the great one who now slept in their 
shadow, we entered our carriage, and rode slowly away from 
Mount Vernon. 



Anecdote of Judge Marshall — anon. 

It is not long since a gentleman was traveling in one of the 
counties of Virginia, and about the close of the day stopped at a 
public house, to obtain refreshment and spend the night. He 
had been there but a short time, before an old man alighted from 
his gig, with the apparent intention of becoming his fellow-gues 4 
at the same house. 

As the old man drove up, he observed that both the shafts of 
his gig were broken, and that they were held together by withes 
formed from the bark of a hickory sapling. Our traveler ob- 
served further, that he was plainly clad, that his knee buckles 
were loosened, and that something like negligence pervaded 
his dress. 

Conceiving him to be one of the honest yeomanry of our land, 
the courtesies of strangers passed between them, and they en- 
tered the tavern. It was about the same time that an addition 
of three or four young gentlemen was made to their number — 
most, if not all of them, of the legal profession. 

As soon as they became conveniently accommodated, the con- 
versation was turned, by one of the latter, upon the eloquent 
harangue which had that day been displayed at the bar. 

It was replied by the other, that he had witnessed the same 
day a degree of eloquence, no doubt equal, but that it was from 
the pulpit. 

Something like a sarcastic rejoinder was made to the elo- 
quence of the pulpit ; and a warm and able altercation ensued, 
-n which the merits of the Christian religion became the subject 
of discussion. From six o'clock until eleven, the young cham- 
oions wielded the sword of argument, adducing with ingenuity 
and ability every thing that could be said pro and con. 

During this protracted period, the old gentleman listened with 
all the meekness and modesty of a child ; as if he was adding 
new information to the stores of his own mind ; or perhaps he 
was observing, with philosophic eye, the faculties of the youthful 



102 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

rnino, *md how new energies are evolved by repeated action ; 
or, perhaps, with patriotic emotion, he was reflecting upon the 
future destinies of his country, and on the rising generation, 
upon whom these future destinies must devolve ; or, most prob- 
ably, with a sentiment of moral and religious feeling, he was 
collecting an argument which (characteristic of himself) no art 
would be " able to elude, and no force to resist." Our traveler 
remained a spectator, and took no part in what was said. 

At last one of the young men, remarking that it was impossi- 
ble to combat with long and established prejudices, wheeled 
around, and with some familiarity, exclaimed, " Well, my old 
gentleman, what think you of these things ? " Tf, said the trav- 
eler, a streak of vivid lightning had at that moment crossed the 
room, their amazement could not have been greater than it was 
with what followed. 

The most eloquent and unanswerable appeal was made for 
nearly an hour, by the old gentleman, that he ever heard or 
read. So perfect was his recollection, that every argument 
urged against the Christian religion was met in the order in 
which it was advanced. Hume's sophistry on the subject of 
miracles was, if possible, more perfectly answered than it had 
already been done by Campbell. And in the whole lecture there 
was so much simplicity and energy, pathos and sublimity, that 
not another word was uttered. 

An attempt to describe it, said the traveler, would be an at- 
tempt to paint the sunbeams. It was now a matter of curiosity 
and inquiry who the old gentleman was. The traveler con- 
c'uded that it was the preacher from whom the pulpit eloquence 
was heard : but no — it was the Chief Justice of the United 
States. 



Buena Vista.— Albert Pike. 

From the Rio Grande's waters to the icy lakes of Maine, 

Let all exult ! for we have met the enemy again — 

Beneath their stern old mountains, we have met them in their 

pride, 
And rolled from Buena Vista back the battle's bloody tide ; 
Where the enemy came surging, like the Mississippi's floods 
And the reaper, Death, was busy with his sickle red with blood 

Santa Anna boasted loudly, that, before two hours were past, 
11 is lancers 'hrough Saltillo should pursue us thick and fast : 



BUENA VISTA. 1.83 

On came his solid regiments, line marcfting after .me ; 

Lo, their great standards in th< mn like sheets of silver shine . 

With thousands upon thousands, yea, with more than four lo 

one, 
A forest of bright bayonets gleams fiercely in the sun. 

Upon them with your squadrons, May ! — Out leaps the flaming 

steel. 
Before his serried column how the frightened lancers reel ! 
They flee amain. Now to the left, to stay their triumph there, 
Or else the day is surely lost in horror and despair ^ 
For their hosts are pouring swiftly on, like a river in the spring . 
Our flank is turned, and on our left their cannon thundering. 

Now, brave artillery ! bold dragoons ! — Steady, my men, and 

calm ! 
Through rain, cold, hail, and thunder ; now nerve each gallant 

arm ! 
What though their shot falls round us here, still thicker than the 

hail! 
We'll stand against them, as the rock stands firm against the 

gale. 
Lo ! their battery is silenced now : our iron hail still showers : 
They falter, halt, retreat ! Hurrah ! the glorious day is ours ! 

Now charge again, Santa Anna ! or the day is surely lost ; 

For back, like broken waves, along our left your hordes are 



Still louder roar two batteries — his strong reserve moves on ; — 
More work is there before you, men, ere the good fight is won ; 
Now for your wives and children stand ! steady, my braves, 

once more ! 
Now for your lives, your honor, fight ! as you never fought 

before. 

Ho ! Hardin breasts it bravely ! McKee and Bissell there 
Stand firm before the storm of balls that fills th 1 astonished air. 
The lancers are upon them, too ! — the foe swarms ten to one — 
Hardin is slain — McKee and Clay the last time see the sun ; 
And many another gallant heart, in that last desperate fray, 
Grew cold, its last thoughts turning to its loved ones far away. 

Still sullenly the cannon roared — but died away at last, 
And o'er the dead and dying came the eve ling shadows fast, 



184 KOSS'S SPEAKEK. 

And then &.bove the mountains rose the cold moon's silver shield. 
And patiently and pityingly looked down upon the field ; 
And careless of his wounded, and neglectful of his dead, 
Despairingly and sullen, in the night, Santa Anna fled 



Darkness. — Bykon. 

I had a dream, which was not all a dream. 

The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars 

Did wander, darkling, in the eternal space, 

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth 

Swung blind, and blackening, in the moonless air , 

Morn came, and went — and came, and brought no day , 

And men forgot their passions, in the dread 

Of this their desolation ; and all hearts 

Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light. 

Some lay down, 
And hid their eyes, and wept ; and some did rest 
Their chins upon their clinched hands, and smiled , 
And others hurried to and fro, and fed 
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up, 
With mad disquietude, on the dull sky, 
The pall of a past world ; and then again, 
With curses, cast them down upon the dust, 
And gnashed their teeth, and howled. The wild birds shrieked 
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, 
And flap their useless wings : the wildest brutes 
Came tame, and tremulous ; and vipers crawled 
And twined themselves among the multitude, 
Hissing, but stingless — they were slain for food. 
The meager by the meager were devoured ; 
Even dogs assailed their masters — all save one, 
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept 
The birds, and beasts, and famished men at bay, 
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead 
Lured their lank jaws ; himself sought out no food. 
But, with a piteous and perpetual moan, 
And a quick, desolate cry, licking the hand 
Which answered not with a caress — he died. 

The crowd was famished by degrees ; but two 
Of an enormous city did survive, 



SOLITUDE. 186 

And they were enemies ; they met beside 

The dying embers of an altar-place, 

Where had been heaped a mass of holy things, 

For an unholy usage : they raked up, 

And, shivering, scraped, with their cold, skeleton hands, 

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath 

Blew for a little life, and made a flame, 

Which was a mockery : then they lifted 

Their eyes, as it grew lighter, and beheld 

Each other's aspects ; saw, and shrieked, and died. 

Even of their mutual hideousness they died, 

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow 

Famine had written fiend. The v/orld was void ; 

The populous and the powerful was a lump — 

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless ; 

A lump of death — a chaos of hard clay. 

The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still, 

And nothing stirred within their silent depths : 

Ships, sailorless, lay rotting on the sea, 

And their masts fell down piecemeal ; as they dropped, 

They slept, on the abyss, without a surge : 

The waves were dead ; the tides were in their grave ; 

The moon, their mistress, had expired before ; 

The winds were withered in the stagnant air, 

And the clouds perished : darkness had no need 

Of aid from them ; she was the universe. 



Solitude. — Btboh . 

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, 
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, 
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, 
And mortal foot hath ne'er, or rarely been ; 
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, 
With the wild flock, that never needs a fold ; 
Alone, o'er steeps and foaming folds to lean ; — 
This is not solitude ; 'tis but to hold 
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled. 

But, 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, 
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, 
*vnd roam along, the world's tired denizen, 



186 BOSS'S SPEAEJSH. 

With none who bless us, none whom we can bless , 
Minions of splendor, shrinking from distress ; 
None, that, with kindred consciousness endued, 
If we were not, would seem to smile the less, 
Of all that flattered, followed, sought, and sued ; — 
This is to be alone ; this, this is solitude. 



Disappointed Ambition, — Johnson. 

In full-blown dignity see Wolsey stand, 

Law in his voice and fortune in his hand ; 

To him the church, the realm, their powers consign , 

Through him the rays of regal bounty shine ; 

Turned by his nod, the stream of honor flows ; 

His smile alone security bestows. 

Still to new heights his restless wishes tower ; 

Claim leads to claim, and power advances power ; 

Till conquest, unresisted, ceased to please, 

And rights submitted left him none to seize. 

At length his sovereign frowns ; the train of state 

Mark the keen glance, and watch the sign to hate. 

Where'er he turns, he meets a stranger's eye ; 

His suppliants scorn him, and his followers fly. 

How drops at once the pride of awful state, 

The golden canopy, the glittering plate, 

The regal palace, the luxurious board, 

The liveried army, and the menial lord ! 

With age, with cares, with maladies oppressed, 

He seeks the refuge of monastic rest. 

Grief aids disease, remembered folly stings, 

And his last sighs reproach the faith of kings. 



The Little Philosopher, — Day 



Mr. L. (Looking at the boy, and admiring his ruddy 
cheerful countenance.) I thank you, my good lad : you have 
caught my horse very cleverly. What shall I give you for youi 
trouble ? (Putting his hand into his pocket.) 

Boy. I want nothing, sir. 

Mr. L, Don't you ? So much the better for you. Few men 



THE LITTLE PHILOSOPHER. 187 

can say as much. But pray what were you doing in the 
field ? 

B. I was rooting up weeds, and tending the sheep that are 
feeding on the turnips, and keeping the crows from the corn. 

Mr. L. And do you like this employment ? 

B. Yes, sir, very well, this fine weather. 

Mr. L. But had you not rather play ? 

B. This is not hard work ; it is almost as good as play. 

Mr. L. Who sent you to work ? 

B. My father, sir. 

Mr. L. Where does he live ? 

B. Just by, among the trees, there, sir. 

Mr. L. What is his name ? 

B. Thomas Hurdle, sir. 

Mr. L. And what is yours ? 

B. Peter, sir. 

Mr. L. How old are you ? 

B. I shall be eight at Michaelmas. 

Mr. L. How long have you been out in this field ? 

B. Ever since six in the morning, sir. 

Mr. L. And are you not hungry ? 

B. Yes, sir ; I shall go to my dinner soon. 

Mr. L. If you had sixpence now, what would you do with it ? 

B. I don't know ; I never had so much in my life. 

Mr. L. Have you no playthings ? 

B. Playthings ! what are they ? 

Mr L. Such as balls, ninepins, marbles, tops, and wooden 
horses. 

B. No, sir ; but our Tom makes footballs to kick in cold 
weather, and we set traps for birds ; and then I have a jumping 
pole, and a pair of stilts to walk through the dirt with ; and I had 
a hoop, but it is broken. 

Mr. L. And do you want nothing else t 

B. No, sir ; I have hardly time for those ; for I always ride 
the horses to the field, and bring up the cows, and run to the 
town on errands ; and these are as good as play, you know. 

Mr. L. Well, but you could buy apples or gingerbread at 
the town, I suppose, if you had money. 

B. O, I can get apples at home ! and as for gingerbread, I 
don't mind it much, for my mother gives me a piece of pie 
now and then, and that is as good. 

Mr. L. Would you not like a knife to cut sticks ? 

B. I have one — here it is — brother Tom gave it me. 

Mr. L. Your shoes are full of holes — don't you want a 
better pair? 



188 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

B. 1 have a better pair for Sundays. 

Mr. L. But these let in water. 

B, I don't care for that ; they let it out again. 

Mr. L. Your hat is all torn, too. 

B. I have a better hat at home ; but I had as lief have none 
at all, for it hurts my head. 

Mr. L. What do you do when it rains ? 

B. If it rains very hard, 1 get under the hedge till it is over. 

Mr. L. What do you do when you are hungry before it is 
time to go home ? 

B. I sometimes eat a raw turnip. 

Mr. L. But if there are none ? 

B. Then I do as well as I can ; I work on, and never 
think of it. 

Mr. L. Are you not dry, sometimes, this hot weather ? 

B. Yes, sir ; but there is water enough. 

Mr. L. Why, my little fellow, you are quite a philosopher. 

B. Sir ? 

Mr. L. I say you are a philosopher ; but I am sure you do 
not know what that means. 

B. No, sir — no harm, I hope. 

Mr. L. No, no. Well, my boy, you seem to want nothing 
•*t all ; so I shall not give you money, to make you want any 
thing. But were you ever at school ? 

B. No, sir ; but father says I shall go, after harvest. 

Mr. L. You will want books then. 

B. Yes, sir ; the boys have all a spelling book and a Tes- 
tament. 

Mr. L. Well, then, I will give you them — tell your father 
so, and that it is because I thought you a very good, contented 
boy. — So now go to your sheep again 

B. 1 will, sir. Thank you. 

Mr. L. Good by, Peter. 

B. Good by, sir. 



Patience essential to Success. 

Db. Talmadge, President of Oglethorpe University, 

" A masterly inactivity" was the motto of one of that illus- 
trious trio of sages who have gone down to the grave amid a 
nation's tears, and whose loss to the nation seems like leaving 
the people orphans — like blotting out the luminary of day from 



PATIENCE ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESS. 189 

the heavens — like taking the weather-beaten pilot from the 
helm, and surrendering the rudder to the hands of inexperienced 
boys. 

In this age of fevered excitement, and in this nation, whsoe 
position and institutions have communicated so fearful a mo- 
mentum to political action, we are in danger, in our hot haste 
and our spirit of self-glorification, of forgetting our dependence 
on God, and of bidding defiance, in every department of life, to 
all the laws of solid progress. *-#_.# 

Among the proverbs which experience and age have em- 
bodied, is the common and trite one, " The more hurry the less 
speed." The engineer, although the road be well graded, does 
not undertake to run the locomotive until the superstructure is 
laid. But in real life many a man attempts to run without grade 
or superstructure, and it requires no oracle to say that he will 
make poor headway. 

Let me present a scene which I wish were always fancy, 
but which I am sorry to say is enacted not unfrequently. Of 
two youths about prepared to enter the Freshman Class of a 
college, one takes his proper place ; the other, at the earnest 
entreaty of an injudicious father, and by the pliancy of a yield- 
ing Faculty, enters the Sophomore Class. The latter, with 
some rare and happy exceptions, if he is able at all to retain his 
position, is found to graduate in three years at the bottom of his 
class ; and you shall never more hear of him unless you go to 
within a few miles of his residence. The former in four years 
graduates, with honor, among the leaders of his class, and is 
soon fifty years ahead of the other in usefulness and fame 
Here a year's time seemed to be gained at the start, but the gain 
proved in the end to be a dead loss. * * * 

Who are those orators with so facile a manner — so easy a 
flow of words — so copious a torrent of thoughts — and with 
such profound philosophy, clothed in illustrations so rich, gath- 
ered from nature and from every science and art — enchaining 
yonder Senate chamber, and fascinating yonder bar, and from 
the pulpit wringing tears of sorrow and of joy alternately from 
the eyes of the enraptured audience ? They are Chatham, and 
Grattan, and Curran, and Calhoun, and Clay, and Webster, and 
Massillon, and Chalmers, and Robert Hall. And what writer is 
that who plays upon the English language as upon a harp, and 
who evokes the sweetest music in the utterance of the richest 
thoughts and the profoundest philosophy ? That is Edmund 
Burke, the philosophic statesman. 

To all these men thought and language seemed playthings, tc 

I 



190 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

be uttered in mere wantonness an J sport. But they gained then 
envied achievements by industry and toil. They were all men 
of severe and patient thought and laborious study. 



The Consular System of the United States. 

John Perkins, Jr., of Louisiana, 

Mr. Speaker : It is utterly useless, under our existing system, 
to request of the committee on foreign affairs an opinion upon 
the legality of any claim that is preferred against the govern- 
ment by one in the foreign service. There is no law to guide 
its decisions, and almost every claim depends upon precedent or 
the discretion of the secretary of state. These claims are 
multiplying with each year, and they will continue to multiply to 
a fearful extent unless there is some positive law defining the 
duties to be discharged, and fixing their proper remuneration. 
Last session about thirty thousand dollars were expended in meet- 
ing these demands. They come into the House without explana- 
tion ; get attached to our general appropriation bills, no one 
knows how ; and pass, no one knows why ; running up our ag 
gregate expenditures, each one becoming a precedent, prolific 
of similar demands in the future. This should not be. It is a 
great abuse. It reflects discredit upon those in the foreign 
service, subjects them to personal humiliation, and is entirely 
opposed to the genius of our institutions. 

In all that I have said I have avoided reference either to party 
or to individuals. This is a national reform, equally affecting 
every portion of the country ; and, until it is accomplished, good 
men of all parties engaged in the foreign service will participate 
alike in the popular prejudice that now exists, created by the 
abuses of a defective system. I have also avoided any refer- 
ence to the foreign policy of our government, either in the past 
or present. Its discussion has nothing to do with the reforms of 
this bill Although embarrassed by jealousies in our early rela- 
tions with foreign powers, we have found, in our remoteness 
from the conflicts of Europe, and our geographical position at 
the head of a great continent, advantages which, with the cau- 
tious maxims of Washington, are destined, beyond doubt, to 
make us the commercial and political center of the world. 

In sixty- five years we have grown from a few comparatively 
feeble settlements into a great empire. Civilization has, within 
this period, poured its light into our great central valley, and 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 191 

forests have disappeared ; cities sprung up, and a magnificent 
landscape every where spread itself out, beautiful in the results 
of religion and law. In this it may be questioned whether the 
internal or foreign policy of the government has had the mosi 
influence. 

The extension of our territory, the rapid development of our 
wealth, the opening of new and the increase of old sources of 
foreign trade, and the participation in it of the capital and prod- 
ucts of all sections of the Union, have caused to sympathize 
nearly every domestic interest with foreign affairs. It is no 
exaggeration to say that there is not an acre of corn or cotton 
grown in the west or south, not an American vessel in any port 
in the world insured, not a loan made, nor a note discounted at 
any of our banks, which is not affected in its value, or in some 
way acted upon, and made a vibration of the great political and 
financial movements of the rest of the world. The fact that 
these domestic interests, which thus, like nerves, spread all over 
the globe, connect remote localities with interior points of our 
own country, can not be protected by our own legislation, but 
depend upon treaties and the regard of the other powers of the 
earth for certain great principles of international law, makes the 
perfecting of the agency, through which we communicate with 
the rest of the world, a matter of great practical importance. 

A distinguished statesman of England, speaking on this sub- 
ject, has called ministers and consuls " the ears, eyes, and 
mouths of a government, by which it hears, sees, and communi- 
cates with the rest of the world.' 1 The object of this bill is to 
make these organs of communication respond more distinctly to 
the purpose of their creation. It is time that something was 
done to reform existing abuses. Our interests at home and 
abroad demand it. The honor of the country requires it. The 
occasion is a fit one. 



American Literature. — gbimcb. 

We can not honor our country with too deep a reverence ; we 
can not love her with an affection too pure and fervent ; we can 
not serve her with an energy of purpose, or a faithfulness of zeal, 
too stedfast and ardent. And what is our country ? It is not 
the East, with her hills and her valleys, with her countless sails, 
and the rocky ramparts of her shores. It is not the North, with 
her thousand villages, and her harvest home, with her frontiers 



192 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

of the lake and the ocean. Tt is not the West, with her forest 
sea and her inlariu isles, with her luxuriant expanses, clothed in 
the verdant corn, with her beautiful Ohio, and her majestic Mis- 
souri. Nor is it yet the South, opulent in the mimic snow of the 
cotton, in the rich plantations of the rustling cane, and in the 
golden robes of the rice field. What are these but the sister 
families of one greater, better, holier family — our country ? 

If, indeed, we desire to behold a literature like that which 
has sculptured, with such energy of expression, which has 
painted so faithfully and vividly, the crimes, the vices, the follies 
of ancient and modern Europe : if we desire that our land should 
furnish for the orator and the novelist, for the painter and the 
poet, age after age, the wild and romantic scenery of war ; the 
glittering march of armies, and the revelry of the camp ; the 
shrieks and blasphemies, and all the horrors of the battle field ; 
the desolation of the harvest, and th burning cottage ; the 
storm, the sack, and the ruin of cities : if we desire to unchain 
the furious passions of jealousy and selfishness, of hatred, re- 
venge, and ambition, those lions that now sleep harmless in their 
len : if we desire that the lake, the river, the ocean, should 
blush with the blood of brothers ; that the winds should waft 
from the land to the sea, from the sea to the land, the roar and 
the smoke of battle ; that the very mountain tops should become 
altars for the sacrifice of brothers, — if we desire that these, and 
such as these — the elements, to an incredible extent, of the 
literature of the old world — should be the elements of our 
literature, then, but then only, let us hurl from its pedestal the 
majestic statue of our Union and scatter its fragments over all 
our land. 

But, if we covet lor our country tne noblest, purest, loveliest 
literature the world has ever seen, such a literature as shall 
honor God and bless mankind, a literature whose smiles might 
play upon an angel's face, whose " tears would not stain an 
angel's cheek," then let us cling to the union of these states 
with a patriot's love, with a scholar's enthusiasm, with a Chris- 
tian's hope. In her heavenly character, as a holocaust self- 
sacrificed to God ; at the height of her glory, as the ornament 
of a free, educated, peaceful, Christian people, American litera- 
ture will find that the intellectual spirit is her very tree of life 
w.d that union her garden of paradise. 



PREDICTIONS OF DISUNION. 193 

Predictions of Disunion, — Wm. Pnnuwi, 



Sir, the people of the United States, if I do not wholly mis- 
take their character, are wise as well as virtuous. They know 
the value of that federal association, which is to them the single 
pledge and guarantee of power and peace. Their warm and 
pious affections will cling to it, as to their only hope of prosperity 
and happiness, in defiance of pernicious abstractions, by whom- 
soever inculcated, or howsoever seductive and alluring in their 
aspect. Sir, it is not an occasion like this, — although con- 
nected, as, contrary to all reasonable expectation, it has been, 
with fearful and disorganizing theories, which would make our 
estimates, whether fanciful or sound, of natural law the measure 
of civil rights and political sovereignty in the social state, — it is 
not, I say, an occasion like this that can harm the Union. It 
must, indeed, be a mighty storm that can push from its moorings 
this sacred ark of the common safety. It is not every trifling 
breeze, however it may be made to sob and howl in imitation 
of the tempest, by the auxiliary breath of the ambitious, the 
timid, or the discontented, that can drive this gallant vessel, 
freighted with every thing that is dear to an American bosom, 
upon the rocks, or lay it a sheer hulk upon the ocean. 

I may, perhaps, mistake the flattering suggestions of hope (the 
greatest of all flatterers, as we are told) for the conclusions of 
sober reason. Yet it is a pleasing error, if it be an error, and 
no man shall take it from me. I will continue to cherish the 
belief, — ay, sir, in defiance of the public patronage given to 
deadly speculations, which, invoking the name of Deity to aid 
their faculties for mischief, strike at all establishments, — I will 
continue to cherish the belief that the Union of these states is 
formed to bear up against far greater shocks than, through all 
vicissitudes, it is ever likely to encounter. I will continue to 
cherish the belief that, although, like all other human institutions, 
it may for a season be disturbed, or suffer momentary eclipse by 
the transit across its disk of some malignant planet, it possesses 
a recuperative force, a redeeming energy, in the hearts of the 
people, that will soon restore it to its wonted calm, and give it 
back its accustomed splendor. On such a subject I will discard 
all hysterical apprehensions ; I will deal in no sinister auguries , 
I will indulge in no hypochondriacal forebodings. I will look 
forward to the future with gay and cheerful hope, and will make 
the prospect smile, in fancy at least, until overwhelming reality 
shall render it no longer possible. 



194 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Value of Knowledge. — h. l. Pincknet. 

What is it that unfolds the structure of the human frame, 
showing, indeed, how fearfully and wonderfully it is made, or 
has invested Surgery with the admirable precision and dexterity 
which it now exhibits, or that enables Medicine to conquer all 
the maladies to which mankind is subject, those plagues and 
pestilences alone excepted which seem destined by Providence 
to perform the office of special judgments, and to remain incura- 
ble scourges of the human race ? What is it that disarms the 
lightning of its power, elevates valleys and depresses hills, 
cleaves the ocean, and ascends the sky ? What is it that we be- 
hold in every elegant and useful art, in the diversified hues that 
attract the eye, in the dresses and decorations of our persons and 
our houses, in every implement of husbandry or war, in the sub- 
terraneous aqueduct, or the heaven-kissing monument, in the 
animated canvas, or speaking marble ? What are all these but 
the varied triumphs of the human mind ? 

And who can estimate their value ? To say nothing of that 
absolute state of barbarism, " when wild in woods the noble 
savage ran," who can measure the difference between the 
splendid illumination of the nineteenth century and that glim- 
mering condition of society ; when astrology assumed to regulate 
events, and alchymy to transmute all other metals into gold; 
when ignorance was affrighted by an ignis fatuus, and comets 
and meteors were regarded as the immediate precursors of the 
dissolution of the world ; when science was considered synony- 
mous with magic, and punished as the evidence of atrocious 
crimes ; when superstition occupied the seat of justice, and guilt 
or innocence was established by the righteous decisions of fire or 
water, or the infallible ordeal of military prowess ? Science is, 
indeed, to the moral, what the great orb of day is to the natural 
world ; and as the extinction of the latter would necessarily be 
followed by universal darkness and decay, so, were art and sci- 
ence lost, society would inevitably relapse into the savagism from 
which it is their proud boast to have elevated and redeemed it 



Patriotism. — h. l. Pincknet. 

The American constitution is, in fact, the political luminary 
of the world ; and he who would extinguish its sacred Jight, is 
not only a traitor to American liberty, but justly deserves to be 



KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT RELIGION. 195 

egarded as an enemy to the human race. Patriotism, there- 
fore, requires you to cultivate an ardent and abiding attachment 
to that constitution as the bond of our political union. 

This is the ark of our political salvation, the citadel from 
which the light of liberty shines and its inspiring banner waves, 
that sacred light, at which mourning humanity may relume its 
hopes, that banner which proudly proclaims that there is still 
one republic in the world, one land where man walks erect in 
all the dignity of his nature, and where the oppressed of other 
nations may happily exchange the miseries of despotism for the 
inestimable fruition of the rights of man. 

And who would overthrow it if he could ? Who is he that 
would rise on the ruins of his countiy, or that desires to see the 
American capitol rocking on its base, and the proud emblem of 
freedom torn from its walls, and this glorious confederacy broken 
into fragments, and the sun of liberty extinguished in fraternal 
blood, and the whole world enveloped in the deep and intermina- 
ble darkness of political death ? 

If there be an American, so utterly unworthy of the name, 
let me tell him, for his consolation, that his parricidal aspiration 
never can be gratified. The American confederacy can never 
be dissolved, never, whilst the people retain a recollection of 
their common sufferings and glories, or are actuated by the 
principles of the revolution, or whilst reason is left free to com- 
bat error, and popular education is promoted, and that great 
engine, the press, remains untrammeled, and men dare to think. 
and speak, and act like freemen. 

" I love thee ; next to heaven above, 
Land of my fathers — thee I love ; 
And rail thy slanderers as they will, 
With all thy faults, I love thee still." 



Knowledge without Religion. — H. L. Pincxnbx. 

But what is knowledge without religion ? Of what avail will it 
be, that thou make the voyage of life with favoring currents 
and propitious gales, if it only bring you at last to an undone 
eternity ? Of what avail will be all the honors and enjoyments 
of this transitory scene, if they are destined to terminate in that 
unending misery which no eloquence can soothe, no learning 
alleviate, no applause divert ? What then ! Are you fond of 
roaming in the fair fields of literature, and can you not be per- 



196 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

euaded 10 cultivate the sacred as well as the profane ? Is there 
no flowery height but Helicon, no golden stream but Hermus r 
Is there no virtue but in the dreams of Plato, no immortality but 
in the hopes of Socrates, no heaven but Elysium ? Have you 
no desire to explore the exquisite beauties of Lebanon or Carmel, 
or to drink of the pure water of " Siloa's brook, that flows fast 
by the oracles of God " ? Is there nothing in the Bible that can 
enlarge your understandings, elevate your imaginations, or refine 
your tastes ? Has it no sublimity of conception, no richness of 
imagery, no power of description ? Has it nothing useful in 
ethics, or valuable in philosophy — nothing instructive as a history, 
or interesting as a system of religion — nothing elevated in its 
poetry, or affecting in its incidents, or important in its moral ? 

Have you determined to know no God, except he be found 
in the ancient mythology — no religion, unless it has been 
proved fabulous — no morality, unless it be notoriously defective 
as to the true springs of virtue and the true principles of duty ? 
Are you only solicitous for the esteem of men, and utterly re- 
gardless of the opinion of your Maker, anxious to obtain earthly 
fame and wisdom, but caring nothing for " that honor which 
cometh from on high," or for that knowledge which alone can 
" make you wise unto salvation " ? Can this be so ? Was it 
for this that you were educated here, and that you intend tc 
prosecute the improvement of your minds ? Is it indeed the 
only object of your future lives, so to acquire every thing useful 
and beautiful, except religion, that you may be decorated like 
victims for the sacrifice, and sink forever, like a richly-freighted 
bark, to the fathomless abyss of eternal woe ? Bear with me for 
a moment ! Are you reveling in youthful vigor, and know you 
not that the domain of death is peopled with the young ? 

Do you anticipate a long career of activity and usefulness, 
and know you not that there is nothing more uncertain than the 
frail tenure of human existence ? Are you proud of your 
talents, glowing with the ardor of ambition, and longing for 
distinction in the race of life, and know you not that the most 
buoyant heart may soon be chilled by the icy touch of the 
destroyer, and the most eloquent tongue be hushed forever in 
the silent tomb ? 

11 Begin — be bold, and venture to be wise ; 
He who defers this work from day to day 
Does on a river's bank expecting stay, 
Till the whole stream that stopped him shall be gone, 
Which runs, and, as it runs, forever shall run on * 



THE BEST OP CLASSICS. 19*, 



The Best of Classics, — Gamxi. 

There is a classic, the best the world has ever seen, the noblest 
that has ever honored and dignified the language of mortals. If 
we look into its antiquity, we discover a title to our veneration 
unrivaled ip. the history of literature. If we have respect to its 
evidences, they are found in the testimony of miracle and proph- 
ecy ; in the ministry of man, of nature, and of angels ; yea, 
even of " God manifest in the flesh," of " God blessed forever." 
If we consider its authenticity, no other pages have survived the 
lapse of time that can be compared with it. If we examine its 
authority, — for it speaks as never man spake, — we discover that 
it came from heaven, in vision and prophecy, under the sanction 
of Him who is Creator of all things, and the Giver of every 
good and perfect gift. 

If we reflect on its truths, they are lovely ana spotless, 
sublime and holy, as God himself, unchangeable as his nature, 
durable as his righteous dominion, and versatile as the moral 
condition of mankind. If we regard the value of its treasures, 
we must estimate them, not like the relics of classic antiquity, 
by the perishable glory and beauty, virtue and happiness, of this 
world, but by the enduring perfection and supreme felicity of an 
eternal kingdom. If we inquire who are the men that have 
recorded its truths, vindicated its rights, and illustrated the excel- 
lence of its scheme, — from the depth of ages and from the liv- 
ing world, from the populous continent and the isles of the sea, 
comes forth the answer, the patriarch and the prophet, the 
evangelist and the martyr. 

If we look abroad through the world ot men, the victims of 
folly or vice, the prey of cruelty or injustice, and inquire what 
are its benefits, even in this temporal state, the great and the 
humble, the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, the 
learned and the ignorant reply, as with one voice, that humility 
and resignation, purity, order, and peace, faith, hope, and charity, 
are its blessings upon earth. And if, raising our eyes from time 
to eternity, from the world of mortals to the world of just men 
made perfect, from the visible creaion, marvelous, beautiful, and 
glorious as it is, to the invisible creation of angels and seraphs, 
from the footstool of God to the throne of God himself, we ask 
what are the blessings that flow from this single volume, — let the 
question be answered by the pen of the evangelist, the harp of 
the prophet, and the records of the book of life. Such is the 
best of classics the world has ever admired ; such, the noblest that 
saan has ever adopted as a guide. 



198 BOSS'S SPEAEJER. 



The Family Bible. — Anon. 

How painfully pleasing the fond recollection 

Of youthful connections and innocent joy, 
When blessed with parental advice and affection, 

Surrounded with mercies, With peace from on high ! 
I still view the chair of my sire and my mother, 

The seats of their offspring are ranged on each hand, 
And that richest of books, which excelled every other 

That family Bible that la)' on the stand ; 
The old-fashioned Bible, the dear, blessed Bible, 

The family Bible, that lay on the stand. 

That Bible, the volume of God's inspiration, 

At morn and at evening, could yield us delight, 
And the prayer of our sire was a sweet invocation 

For mercy by day and for safety through night. 
Our hymns of thanksgiving, with harmony swelling, 

All warm from the heart of a family band, 
Half-raised us from earth to that rapturous dwelling 

Described in the Bible that lay on the stand ; 
That richest of books, which excelled every other, 

The family Bible, that lay on the stand. 

Ye scenes of tranquillity, long have we parted ; 

My hopes almost gone, and my parents no more ; 
In sorrow and sadness I live broken-hearted, 

And wander unknown on a far-distant shore. 
Yet how can I doubt a dear Savior's protection, 

Forgetful of gifts from his bountiful hand ! 
O, let me, with patience, receive his correction, 

And think of the Bible that lay on the stand ; 
That richest of books, which excelled every other, 

That family Bible that lay on the stand. 



Absalom. — Willis. 

The waters slept. Night's silvery vail hung lo% 
On Jordan's bosom, and the eddies curled 
Their glossy rings beneath it, like the still, 
Unbroken beating of the sleeper's pulse. 



ABSALOM. 19© 

The reeds bent down the stream. The willow leaves, 
With a soft cheek upon the lulling tide, 
Forgot the lifting winds ; and the long stems, 
Whose flowers the water, like a gentle nurse, 
Bears on its bosom, quietly gave way, 
And leaned in graceful attitudes to rest. 
How strikingly the course of nature tells, 
By its light heed of human suffering, 
That it was fashioned for a perfect world ! 

King David's limbs were weary. He had fled 

From far Jerusalem, and now he stood 

With his faint people for a little rest 

Upon the shore of Jordan. The light wind 

Of morn was stirring, and he bared his brow 

To its refreshing breath ; for he had worn 

The mourner's covering, and he had not felt 

That he could see his people until now. 

They gathered round him on the fresh, green bank, 

And spoke their kindly words ; and as the sun 

Rose up in heaven, he knelt among them there, 

And bowed his head upon his hands to pray. 

O, when the heart is full, when bitter thoughts 

Come crowding thickly up for utterance, 

And the poor common words of courtesy 

Are such a very mockery, how much 

The bursting heart may pour itself in prayer ! 

He prayed for Israel ; and his voice went up 

Strongly and fervently ; he prayed for those 

Whose love had been his shield ; and his deep tone 

Grew tremulous ; but O, for Absalom ! 

For his estranged, misguided Absalom — 

The proud, bright being who had burst away, 

In all his princely beauty, to defy 

The heart that cherished him — for him he poured, 

In agony that would not be controlled, 

Strong supplication, and forgave him there, 

Before his God, for his deep sinfulness. 

The hosts were numbered. At Mahanaim's gate 
Sat David, as the glittering thousands passed 
Forth to the battle. With a troubled eye 
He looked upon their pomp, and as the helms 
Bent low before him, and the banners swayed 



200 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Like burnished wings to do him reverenc% 
His look grew restless, and he did not wear 
The lofty sternness of a monarch's brow. 
The leader of the host came by. His form 
Was like a son of Anak, and he strode 
Majestically on, and bore his crest 
As men were waters, and his frame a rock. 
The king rose up to Joab, and came near, 
As his tall helm was bowed ; and by the love 
He bore his master, he besought him there 
That he would spare him Absalom alive. 
He passed with his stern warriors on ; the trump 
And the loud cymbal died upon the ear ; 
And as the king turned off his weary gaze, 
The last faint gleam had vanished, and the wood 
Of Ephraim had received a thousand men, 
To whom its pleasant shadows were a grave. 

The pall was settled. He who slept beneath 

Was straightened for the grave ; and as the folds 

Sunk to the still proportions, they betrayed 

The matchless symmetry of Absalom. 

His hair was yet unshorn, and silken curls 

Were floating round the tassels as thoy swayed 

To the admitted air, as glossy now 

As when, in hours of gentle dalliance, bathing 

The snowy fingers of Judea's girls. 

His helm was at his feet ; his banner, soiled 

With trailing through Jerusalem, was laid 

Reversed beside him ; and the jeweled hilt, 

Whose diamonds lit the passage of his blade, 

Rested like mockery on his covered brow. 

The soldiers of the king trod to and fro, 

Clad in the garb of battle, and their chief, 

The mighty Joab, stood beside his bier, 

And gazed upon the dark pall stedfastly, 

As if he feared the slumberer might stir. 

A slow step startled him. He grasped his blade 

As if a trumpet rang ; but the bent form 

Of David entered, and he gave com viand 

In a low tone to his few followers, 

And left him with his dead.* 



HAMLET AND HORATIO. 201 



Hamlet and Horatio* — Shakspbakb 

Horatio. Hail to your lordship ! 

Hamlet. I am glad to see you well : {approaches.) 
Horatio, — or I do forget myself. 

Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever. 

Ham. Sir, my good friend ; I'll change that name with you. 
And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio ? 

Hor, A truant disposition, good my lord. 

Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so ; 
Nor shall you do mine ear that violence, 
To make it truster of your own report 
Against yourself : I know you are no truant. 
But what is your affair in Elsinore ? 
We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart. 

Hor. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral. 

Ham. I pray thee do not mock me, fellow-student ■ 
I think it was to see my mother's wedding. 

Hor. Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon. 

Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio ! the funeral baked meats 
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. 
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven, 
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio ! 
My father methinks I see my father. 

Hor. Where, my lord ? 

Ham. In my mind's eye, Horatio. 

Hor. I saw him once ; he was a goodly king. 

Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all , 
I shall not look upon his like again. 

Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yestermgnt 

Ham. Saw ! who ? 

Hor. My lord, the king, your father. 

Ham. The king, my father ? 

Hor. Season your admiration for a while 
With an attent ear ; till I may deliver, 
Upon the witness of these gentlemen, 
This marvel to you. 

Ham. For Heaven's love, let me hear. 

Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen 
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch, 
In the dead waste and middle of the night, 
Been thus encountered : A figure like your father 
Armed at ail points, exactly, cap-a-pie, 



202 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Appears before them, and, with solemn march, 
Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walked 
By their oppressed and fear-surprised eyes, 
Within his truncheon's length ; whilst they, distilled 
Almost to jelly with the act of fear, 
Stand dumb, and speak not to him. 

Ham. But where was this ? 

Hor. My lord, upon the platform where we watched. 

Ham. Did you not speak to it ? 

Hor. My lord, I did ; 
But answer made it none. Yet once, methought, 
It lifted up its head, and did address 
Itself to motion, like as it would speak ; 
But, even then, the morning cock crew loud ; 
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away, 
And vanished from our sight. 

Ham. 'Tis very strange ! 

Hor. As I do live, my honored lord, 'tis true ; 
And we did think it writ down in our duty 
To let you know of it. 

Ham Indeed, indeed, sir, but this troubles me. 
Hold you the watch to-night ? 

Hor. We do, my lord. 

Ham. Armed, say you ? 

Hor. Armed, my lord. 

Ham. From top to toe ? 

Hor. My lord, from head to foot. 

Ham. Then saw you not his face ? 

Hor. O, yes, my lord : he wore his beaver up. 

Ham What, looked he frowningiy ? 

Hor. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger 

Ham Pale, or red ? 

Hor. Nay, very pale. 

Ham. And fixed his eyes upon you ? 

Hor. Most constantly. 

Ham. I would I had been there. 

Hor. It would have much amazed you. 

Ham. Very like, very like ; staid it long ? 

Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred 

Ham. His beard was grizzled ? — no ? - — 

Hor. It was as I have seen it in his life, 

sable silvered. 

Ham. I'll watch to-night; perchance 'twill walk again 

Hot. 1 warrant you it will. 



HARD TO PLEASE. 203 



Ham. If it assume my noble father's person, 
I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape, 
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you, sir, 
If you have hitherto concealed this sight, 
Let it be tenable in your silence still ; 
And whatsoever else shall hap to-night, 
Give it an understanding, but no tongue ; 
I will requite your love : so, fare you well. 
Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve, 
I'll visit you. 



Hard to please.— taia* Edgbwokth. 

Mrs. Bolingbroke. I wish I knew what was the matter with 
me this morning. Why do you keep the newspaper all to your- 
self, my dear ? 

Mr. Bolinglroke. Here it is for you, my dear : I have fin- 
ished it. 

Mrs. B. 1 humbly thank you for giving it to me when you 
have done with it. I hate stale news. Is there any thing in the 
paper ? for I can not be at the trouble of hunting it. 

Mr. B. Yes, my dear ; there are the marriages of two of 
our friends. 

Mrs. B. Who ? who ? 

Mr. B. Your friend, the widow Nettleby, to her cousm, 
John Nettleby. 

Mrs. B. Mrs. Nettleby ! Lord ! But why did you tell me ? 

Mr. B. Because you asked me, my dear. 

Mrs. B. 0, but it is a hundred times pleasanter to read the 
paragraph one's self. One loses all the pleasure of the surprise 
by being told. Well, whose was the other marriage ? 

Mr. B. O, my dear, I will not tell you ; I will leave yoa the 
pleasure of the surprise. 

Mrs. B. But you see I can not find it. How provoking you 
are, my dear ! Do pray tell it me. 

Mr. B. Our friend, Mr. Granby. 

Mrs. B. Mr. Granby ! Dear ! Why did you not make me 
guess ? I should have guessed him directly. But why do you 
call him our friend ? I am sure he is no friend of mine, nor 
ever was. 1 took an aversion to him, as you may remember, the 
very first day I saw him. I am sure he is no friend of mine. 

Mr. B. I am sorry for it, my dear ; but I hope you will go 
and see Mrs. Granby, 



204 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Mrs. B. Not I, indeed, my dear. Who was she ? 

Mr. B. Miss Cooke. 

Mrs. B. Cooke ! But there are so many Cookes ; can't you 
distinguish her in some way ? Has she no Christian name ? 

Mr. B. Emma, I think. Yes, Emma. 

Mrs. B. Emma Cooke ! No ; it can not be my friend Em- 
ma Cooke ; for I am sure she was cut out for an old maid. 

Mr. B. This lady seems to me to be cut out for a good 
wife. 

Mrs. B. May be so. I am sure I'll never go to see her. 
Pray, my dear, how came you to see so much of her ? 

Mr. B. I have seen very little of her, my dear. I only saw 
her two or three times before she was married. 

Mrs. B. Then, my dear, how could you decide that she was 
cut out for a good wife ? I am sure you could not judge of her 
by seeing her only two or three times, and before she was 
married. 

Mr. B. Indeed, my love, that is a very just observation. 

Mrs. B. I understand that compliment perfectly, and thank 
you for it, my dear. I must own I can bear any thing better 
than irony. 

Mr. B. Irony ! my dear, I was perfectly in earnest. 

Mrs. B. Yes, yes ; in earnest — so I perceive. I may 
naturally be dull of apprehension, but my feelings are quick 
enough ; I comprehend you too well. Yes ; it is impossible to 
judge of a woman before marriage, or to guess what sort of a 
wife she will make. I presume you speak from experience ; you 
have been disappointed yourself, and repent your choice. 

Mr. B. My dear, what did I say that was like this ? Upon 
my word, I meant no such thing. I really was not thinking of 
you in the least. 

Mrs. B. No ; you never think of me now. 1 can easilv 
believe that you were not thinking of me in the least. 

Mr. B. But I said that only to prove to you that I could not 
be thinking ill of you, my dear. 

Mrs. B. But I would rather that you thought ill of me, than 
that you did not think of me at all. 

Mr. B. Well, my dear, I will even think ill of you, if that 
will please you. 

Mrs. B. Do you laugh at me ? When it comes to this, I 
am wretched indeed. Never man laughed at the woman he 
loved. As long as you had the slightest remains of love for me, 
you could not make me an object of derision : ridicule and love 
are incompatible ; absolutely incompatible. Well, I have done 



OLD GRIMES. 205 

my best, my very best, to make you happy, but in vain, i 
see I am not cut out to be a good wife. Happy, happy Mrs 
Granby ! 

Mr. B. Happy, I hope sincerely, that she will be with my 
friend ; but my happiness must depend on you, my love ; so, for 
my sake, if not for your own, be composed, and do not torment 
yourself with such fancies. 

Mrs. B. I do wonder whether this Mrs. Granby is really 
that Miss Emma Cooke. I'll go and see her directly ; see her 
I must. 

Mr. B. I am heartily glad of it, my dear ; for I am sure a 
visit to his wife will give my friend Granby real pleasure. 

Mrs. B. I promise you, my dear, I do not go to give him 
pleasure or you either ; but to satisfy my own — curiosity. 



Old Grimes, — albbbt g. Gbbbkb. 

Old Grimes is dead ; that good old man 

We never shall see more ; 
He used to wear a long black coat, 

All buttoned down before. 

His heart was open as the day, 

His feelings all were true ; 
His hair was some inclined to gray — 

He wore it in a queue. 

Whene'er he heard the voice of pain, 
His breast with pity burned ; 

The large round head upon his cane 
From ivory was turned. 

Kind words he ever had for all ; 

He knew no base design : 
His eyes were dark and rather small, 

His nose was aquiline. 

He lived at peace with all mankind • 

In friendship he was true ; 
His coat had pocket holes behind, 

His pantaloons were blue. 



206 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Unharmed, the sin which earth pollutes 
He passed securely o'er ; 

Ind never wore a pair of boots 
For thirty years or more. 

But good old Grimes is now at rest 
Nor fears misfortune's frown : 

He wore a double-breasted vest — 
The stripes ran up and down. 

He modest merit sought to find, 

And pay it its desert ; 
He had no malice in his mind, 

No ruffles on his shirt. 

His neighbors he did not abuse — 

Was sociable and gay , 
He wore large buckles on his shoes, 

And changed them every day. 

His knowledge, hid from public gaze, 
He did not bring to view, 

Nor make a noise, town-meeting days, 
As many people do. 

His worldly goods he never threw 
In trust to Fortune's chances ; 

But lived (as all his brothers do) 
In easy circumstances. 

Thus undisturbed by anxious cares, 
His peaceful moments ran, 

And every body said he was 
A fine old gentleman. 



Major Brown, — Hood. 

If any man, in any age. in any town or city, 

Was ever valiant courteous, t:age, experienced, wise, or witty, 

That man was Major Brown by name : the fact you can no< 

doubt, 
For he himself would say the same, ten times a day, about 



MAJOR BROWN. 207 

The major in the foreign wars indifferently had fared ; 
For he was covered o'er with scars, though he was never scared 
But war had now retired to rest, and piping peace returned ; 
Yet still within his ardent breast the major's spirit burned. 

When suddenly he heard of one who in an air balloon 

Had gone — I can't tell where he'd gone — almost into the 

moon. 
" Let me — let me," the major cries, " let me, like him, ascend , 
And if it fall that I should rise, who knows where it may end ? " 
The cords are cut — a mighty shout — the globe ascends on 

high; 
And, like a ball from gun shot out, the major mounts the sky — 
Or would have done, but cruel chance forbade it so to be ; 
And bade the major not advance — caught in a chestnut tree. 

But soon the awkward branch gives way, he smooths his angry 

brow, 
Shoots upward, rescued from delay, and makes the branch a 

bow : 
Till, mounting furlongs now some dozens, and peeping down he 

pants 
To see his mother, sisters, cousins, and uncles look like ants. 
That Brown looked blue I will not say, — his uniform was red, — 
But he thought that if his car gave way he should probably be 

dead. 
He gave his manly breast a slap, and loudly shouted, " Courage ! " 
And waved above his head the cap in which he used to forage. 

And up he went, and looked around to see what there might be, 
And felt convinced that on the ground were better things to see. 
A strange bird came his path across, whose name he did not 

know ; 
Quoth he, " 'Tis like an albatross ; " it proved to be a crow. 
" I wish that you would please to drop," quoth Brown to his 

balloon ; — 
He might as well have spoken to the man that's in the moon. 
And now the heavens begin to lower, and thunders loud to roll, 
A.nd winds and rains to blow and pour, that would daunt a 

general's soul. 

rtuch a hurricane to Major Brown musr most unpleasant be ; 
And he said " If I can not get down, 'twill be all up with 
me ! ' 



208 ROSS' IS SPEAKER. 

From his pocket, then, a knife he took ; in Birmingham twa» 

made ; 
The handle was of handsome look, of tempered steel the blade. 
Says he, " The acquaintance of a balloon I certainly shall cut ; " 
So in the silken bag full soon his penknife blade he put. 
Out rushed the gas imprisoned there — the balloon began to sink ; 
" I shall surely soon get out of the air," said Major Brown, " I 

think." 

Alas for Brown, balloon, and car, the gas went out too fast ; 
The car went upside down, and far poor Major Brown was cast. 
Long time head over heels he tumbled, till unto the ground, 
As I suppose, he must have come ; but he was never found. 
The car was found in London town ; the bag to Oxford flew ; 
But what became of Major Brown no mortal ever knew. 



The DueL — H.ooT>. 

In Brentford town, of old renown, there lived a Mister Bray, 

Who fell in love with Lucy Bell, and so did Mister Clay. 

To see her ride from Hammersmith, by all it was allowed, 

Such fair " outside " * was never seen — an angel on a cloud. 

Said Mr. Bray to Mr. Clay, " You choose to rival me, 

And court Miss Bell ; but there your court no thoroughfare 

shall be. 
Unless you now give up your suit, you may repent your love ; 
1, who have shot a pigeon match, can shoot a turtle dove. 

" So pray, before you woo her more, consider what yoi do : 

If you pop aught to Lucy Bell, I'll pop it into you." 

Said Mr. Clay to Mr. Bray, " Your threats I do explode ; 

One who has been a volunteer knows how to prime and load. 

And so I say to you, unless your passion quiet keeps, 

I, who have shot and hit bulls'* eyes, may chance to hit a 

sheep's ! " 
Now gold is oft for silver changed, and that for copper red ; 
But these two went away to give each other change for lead. 

But first they found a friend apiece, this pleasant thought :o give — 
That when they both were dead, they'd have two secinds yet c 
live. 

* In England, women frequently ride on the outside of stag* coaches. 



THE BIKTHDAY OF WASHINGTON. 209 

To measure out the ground not long the seconds next forbore , 
And having taken one rash step, they took a dozen more. 
They next prepared each pistol pan against the deadly strife, 
By putting in the prime of death, against the prime of life. 
Now all was ready for the foes ; but when they took their stands, 
Fear made them tremble so, they found they both were shaking 
hands. 

Said Mr. C. to Mr. B., " Here one of us may fall, 

And, like St. Paul's Cathedral now, be doomed to have a ball 

I do confess I did attach misconduct to your name ; 

If I withdraw the charge, will then your ramrod do the same ? ' 

Said Mr. B., " I do agree. But think of honor's courts ; 

If we go off without a shot, there will be strange reports. 

But look ! the morning now is bright, though cloudy it begun , 

Why can't we aim above, as if we had called out the sun ? " 

So up into the harmless air their bullets they did send ; 

And may all other duels have that upshot in the end. 



The Birthday of Washington.— Rvma Choatb. 

The birthday of the " Father of his Country " ! May it ever 
be freshly remembered by American hearts. May it ever re- 
awaken in them a filial veneration for his memory ; ever rekindle 
the fires of patriotic regard to the country which he loved so 
well ; to which he gave his youthful vigor and his youthful 
energy, during the perilous period of the early Indian warfare ; 
to which he devoted his life, in the maturity of his powers, in the 
field ; to which, again, he offered the counsels of his wisdom and 
his experience, as president of the convention that framed our 
constitution ; which he guided and directed while in the chair of 
state, and for which the last prayer of his earthly supplication 
was offered up, when it came the moment for him so well, and 
so grandly, and so calmly, to die. He was the first man of the 
time in which he grew. His memory is first and most sacred 
in our love ; and ever hereafter, till the last drop of blood shall 
freeze in the last American heart, his name shall be a spell of 
power ana might. 

Yes, gentlemen, there is one personal, one vast felicity, which 
no man can share with him. It was the daily beauty and tower- 
ing and matchless glory of his life, which enabled him to create 
his country, and, at the same time, secure an undying love and 
14 



210 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

regard from the whole American people. " The first in the 
hearts of his countrymen ! " Yes, first ! He has our first and 
most fervent love. Undoubtedly there were brave, and wise 
and good men, before his day, in every colony. But the Ameri- 
can nation, as a nation, I do not reckon to have begun before 
1774 And the first love of that young America was Washing- 
ton. The first word she lisped was his name. Her earliest 
breath spoke it. It still is her proud ejaculation, and it will be 
the last gasp of her expiring life. 

Yes, others of our great men have been appreciated — many 
admired by all. But him we love. Him we all love. At^out 
and around him we call up no dissentient, and discordant, and dis 
satisfied elements — no sectional prejudice nor bias — no party 
no creed, no dogma of politics. None of these shall assail him. 
Yes, when the storm of battle blows darkest and rages highest, 
the memory of Washington shall nerve every American arm, 
and cheer every American heart. It shall relume that Prome- 
thean fire, that sublime flame of patriotism, that devoted love of 
country, which his words have commended, which his example 
has consecrated. 

" Where may the wearied eye repose, 

When gazing on the great, 
Where neither guilty glory glows, 

Nor despicable state ? 
Yes — one — the first, the last, the best, 
The Cincinnatus of the west, 

Whom envy dared not hate, 
Bequeathed the name of Washington, 
To make man blush there was but one." 



The Indian, as he was and is.—Q. Spbaovb. 

Not many generations ago, where you now sit, circled with 
all that exalts and embellishes civilized life, the rank thistle 
nodded in the wind, and the wild fox dug his hole unscared. 
Here lived and loved another race of beings. Beneath the 
same sun that rolls over your heads, the Indian hunter pursued 
the panting deer ; gazing on the same moon that smiles for you, 
the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate. Here the wigwam blaze 
beamed on the tender and helpless, the council fire glared on the 
wise and daring. Now they dipped their noble limbs in your 
sedgy lakes, and now they paddled the light canoe along your 
rocky shores. Here they warred ; the echoing whoop, the 



REPLY TO SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. 211 

bloody grapple, the defying death song, all were here ; and when 
the tiger strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace. Here, 
too, they worshipped ; and from many a dark bosom went up a 
pure prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written his laws 
for them on tables of stone, but he had traced them on the tables 
of their hearts. The poor child of nature knew not the God of 
revelation, but the God of the universe he acknowledged in every 
thing around. 

And all this has passed away. Across the ocean came a pil- 
grim bark, bearing the seeds of life and death. The former 
were sown for you ; the latter sprang up in the path of the sim- 
ple native. Two hundred years have changed the character of 
a great continent, and blotted forever from its face a whole 
peculiar people. Art has usurped the bowers of nature, and the 
anointed children of education have been too powerful for the 
tribes of the ignorant. As a race, they have withered from the 
land. Their arrows are broken, their springs are dried up, their 
cabins are in the dust. Their council fire has long since gone 
out on the shore, and their war cry is fast dying to the untrodden 
west. Slowly and sadly they climb the distant mountains, and 
read their doom in the setting sun. They are shrinking before 
the mighty tide which is pressing them away ; they must soon 
hear the roar of the last wave, which will settle over them 
forever. 



Reply to Sir Robert Walpole.—Firr. 

The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honor- 
able gentleman has, with such spirit and decency, charged upon 
me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content 
myself with hoping that I may be one of those whose follies 
cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant 
in spite of experience. Whether youth can be imputed to a man 
as a reproach I will not assume the province of determining ; 
but surely age may become justly contemptible, if the opportuni- 
ties which it brings have passed away without improvement, and 
vice appears to prevail when the passions have subsided. The 
wretch, who, after having seen the consequences of a thousand 
errors, continues still to blunder, and whose age has only added 
obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object either of abhorrence 
or contempt, and deserves not that his gray hairs should secure 
him from insult. Much more is he to be abhorred, who, as he 



212 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and become more 
wicked with less temptation ; who prostitutes himself for money 
which he cannot enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the 
rum of his country. 

But youth is not my only crime ; I am accused of acting a 
theatrical part. A theatrical part may either imply some pecu- 
liarity of gesture, or a dissimulation of my real sentiments, and 
an adoption of the opinions and language of another man. In 
the first sense, the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and 
deserves only to be mentioned that it may be despised. I am 
at liberty, like every other man, to use my own language ; and 
though, perhaps, I may have some ambition to please this gentle- 
man, I shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very soli- 
citously copy his diction or his mien, however matured by age or 
modeled by experience. 

But, if any man shall, by charging me with theatrical beha 
vior, imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall tfesn 
him as a calumniator and a villain ; nor shall any protection 
shelter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall, on such an 
occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those forms with 
which wealth and dignity intrench themselves, nor shall any 
thing but age restrain my resentment ; age, which always brings 
one privilege — that of being insolent and supercilious without 
punishment. 

But, with regard to those whom I have offended, I am of opin- 
ion that, if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have avoided 
their censure ; the heat that offended them was the ardor of 
conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country which 
neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not 
sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence 
upon public robbery. I will exert my endeavors, at whatever 
hazard, to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice, who- 
ever may protect him in his villanies, and whoever may partake 
of his plunder. 



Character of Mr, Pitt.— Robertson. 

The secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had not 
reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of 
his character had the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind 
overawed majesty itself. No state chicanery, no narrow system 
of vicious politics, no idle contest for ministerial victories, sunk 



CHARACTER OF MR. PITT. 213 

him to the vulgar level of the great ; but overbearing, persua- 
sive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition 
was fame. 

Without dividing, he destroyed party ; without corrupting, he 
made a venal age unanimous. France sank beneath him. With 
one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded in the 
other the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was 
infinite ; and his schemes were to affect, not England, not the 
present age only, but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were 
the means by which these schemes were accomplished ; always 
seasonable, always adequate, the suggestions of an understanding 
am mated by ardor, and enlightened by prophecy. 

The ordinary feelings which make life amiable and indolent 
were unknown to him. No domestic difficulties, no domestic 
weakness, reached him ; but aloof from the sordid occurrences 
of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally 
into our system, to counsel and decide. A character so exalted, 
so strenuous, so various, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt 
age, and the treasury trembled at the name of Pitt, through all 
classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she had 
found defects in this statesman, and talked much of the inconsist- 
ency of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victories ; but the 
history of his country, and the calamities of the enemy, answered 
and refuted her. 

Nor were his political his only talents. His eloquence was 
an era in the senate — peculiar and spontaneous ; familiarly ex- 
pressing gigantic sentiments and instructive wisdom ; not like the 
torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully ; 
it resembled sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music of 
the spheres. He did not conduct the understanding through the 
painful subtilty of argumentation, nor was he ever on th^ rack 
of exertion ; but rather lightened upon the subject, and reached 
the point by the flashings of the mind, which, like those of the 
eye, were felt, but could not be followed. 

Upon the whole, there was in this man something that could 
create, subvert, or reform ; an understanding, a spirit, and an 
eloquence, to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds 
of slavery asunder, and to rule the wildness of free minds 
with unbounded authority ; something that could establish or 
overwhelm empires, and strike a blow in the world that should 
resound through the universe. 



214 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

British Refugees. — Patrick Henry. 

■"Extract from a speech delivered in the legislature of Virginia, in favoj 
of permitting the British refugees, or those who had joined the English 
party in the war of independence, to return to the United States.] 

We have, Mr. Chairman, an .extensive country without popu- 
lation. What can be a more obvious policy than that this coun- 
try ought to bj peopled ? People form the strength and constitute 
the wealth of a nation. I want to see our vast forests filled up 
by some process a little more speedy than the ordinary course 
of nature. I wish to see these states rapidly ascending to that 
rank which the'r natural advantages authorize them to hold 
among the nations of the earth. Cast your eyes over this exten- 
sive country. Observe the salubrity of your climate, the variety 
and fertility of your soil, and see that soil intersected in every 
quarter by bold, navigable streams, flowing to the east and to 
the west, as if the finger of Heaven were marking out the couise 
of your settlements, inviting you to enterprise, and pointing the 
way to wealth. 

Sir, you are destined, at some period or other, to become a 
great agricultural and commercial people ; the only question is, 
whether you choose to reach this point by slow gradations, and 
at some distant period, lingering on through a long and sickly 
minority, subjected meanwhile to the machinations, insults, and 
oppressions of enemies, foreign and domestic, without sufficient 
strength to resist and chastise them, or whether you choose 
rather to rush at once, as it were, to the full enjoyment of those 
high destinies, and be able to cope, single-handed, with the proud 
est oppressor of the world. 

If you prefer the latter course, as I trust you do, encourage 
immigration ; encourage the husbandmen, the mechanics, the mer- 
chants of the old world to come and settle in the land of promise. 
Make it the home of the skillful, the industrious, the fortunate, 
and the happy, as well as the asylum of the distressed. Fill up 
the measure of your population as speedily as you can, by the 
means which Heaven has plated in your power ; and I venture 
to prophesy tnere are now those living who will see this favorea 
land among the most powerful on earth, able to take care of 
herself without resorting to that policy so dangerous, though 
sometimes unavoidable, of calling in foreign aid. Yes, they will 
see her great in arts and in arms, hei golden harvests waving 
over fields of immeasurable extent, her commerce penetrating 
the most distant seas, and her cannon silencing the vain b*H»sl 
of those who now proudly affect to rule the waves. 



BRITISH REFUGEES. 21? 

Instead of refusing permission to the refugees to return, it is 
your true policy to encourage immigration to this country by every 
means in your power. Sir, you must have men. You cannot 
get along without them. Those heavy forests of timber, under 
which your lands are groaning, must be cleared away. Those 
vast riches which cover the face of your soil, as well as those 
which lie hid in its bosom, are to be developed and gathered only 
by the skill and enterprise of men. Your timber must be worked 
up into ships, to transport the productions of the soil, a. id find 
the best markets for them abroad. Your great want is the want 
of men ; and these you must have, and wiU have speedily, if you 
are wise. 

Do you ask how you are to get them ? Open your doors, sir, 
and they will come. The population of the old world is full to 
overflowing. That population is ground, too, by the oppressions 
of the governments under which they live. They are already 
standing on tiptoe upon their native shores, and looking to your 
coasts with a wishful and longing eye. They see here a land 
blessed with natural and political advantages, which are not 
equaled by those of any other country on earth ; a land on which 
a gracious Providence hath emptied the horn of abundance ; a 
land over which Peace hath now stretched forth her white wings, 
and where content and plenty lie down at every door. 

They see something still more attractive than this. They see 
a land in which Liberty has taken up her abode ; that Liberty 
whom they had considered as a fabled goddess, existing only in 
the fancies of the poets. They see her here, a real divinity ; her 
altars rising on every hand, throughout these happy states ; her 
glories chanted by three millions of tongues ; and the whole re- 
gion smiling under her blessed influence. Let but this celestial 
goddess, Liberty, stretch forth her fair hand toward the people 
of the old world, tell them to come, and bid them weJcome, 
and you will see them pouring in from the north, from the south, 
from the east, and from the west. Your wilderness will be 
cleared and settled, your deserts will smile, your ranks will be 
filled, and you will soon be in a condition to defy the powers of 
any adversary. 

But gentlemen object to any accession from Great Britain, and 
particularly to the return of the British refugees. Sir, I feel no 
objection to the return of those deluded people. They have, to 
be sure, mistaken their own interests most wonderfully, and most 
wofully have they suffered the punishment due to their offences. 
But the relations which we bear to them and to their native coun- 
try are now changed. Their king hath acknowledged our inde- 



216 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

pendence The quarrel is over. Peace hath returned, and 
found us a free people. 

Let us have the magnanimity to lay aside our antipathies and 
prejudices, and consider the subject in a political light. They 
are an enterprising, moneyed people. They will be serviceable 
in taking off the surplus produce of our lands, and supplying us 
with necessaries during the infant state of our manufactures. 
Even if they be inimical to us in point of feeling and principle, 
I can see no objection, in a political view, to making them tribu- 
tary to our advantage. And as I have no prejudices to prevent 
my making use of them, so I have no fear of any mischief they 
can do us. Afraid of them ! What, sir, shall we, who have laid 
the proud British lion at our feet, now be afraid of his whelps 1 



The Fourteenth Congress. — R. h. Wilde. 

I had the honor to be a member of the fourteenth Congress. 
It was an honor then. What it is now, I shall not say. It is 
what the twenty-second Congress have been pleased to make it. 
I have neither time, nor strength, nor ability, to speak of the 
legislators of that day as they deserve, nor is this a fit occasion. 
Yet the coldest or most careless nature can not recur to such 
associates, without some touch of generous feeling, which, in 
quicker spirits, would kindle into high and almost holy enthusiasm. 

Preeminent among them was a gentleman of South Carolina,* 
now no more — the purest, the calmest, the most philosophical of 
our country's modern statesmen ; one no less remarkable for 
gentleness of manners and kindness of heart than for that pas- 
sionless, unclouded intellect which rendered him deserving of 
the praise, if ever man deserved it, of merely standing by, and 
letting reason argue for him ; the true patriot, incapable of all 
selfish ambition, who shunned office and distinction, yet served 
his country faithfully, because he loved her ; him I mean 
who consecrated, by his example, the noble precept, so entirely 
his own, that the first station in a republic was neither to be 
sought after nor declined — a sentiment so just and so happily 
expressed that it continues to be repeated, because it can not be 
improved. 

There was, also, a gentleman from Maryland,! whose ashes 
now slumber in your cemetery. It is not long since I stood by 

* Lowndes. t Pincknay. 



THE FOURTEENTH CONGRESS. 217 

his tomb, and recalled him, as he was then, in all the pride and 
power of his genius. Among the first of his countrymen and 
contemporaries, as a jurist and statesman, first as an orator, he 
was, if not truly eloquent, the prince of rhetoricians. Nor did 
the soundness of his logic suffer any thing by a comparison with 
the richness and classical purity of the language in which he 
copiously poured forth those figurative illustrations of his argu- 
ment, which enforced while they adorned it. But let others 
pronounce his eulogy. I must not. I feel as if his mighty spirit 
^till haunted the scenes of its triumphs, and when I dared to 
wrong them, indignantly rebuked me. 

These names have become historical. There were others, of 
whom it is more difficult to speak, because yet within the reach 
of praise or envy. For one who was, or aspired to be, a politi- 
cian, it would be prudent, perhaps wise, to avoid all mention of 
these men. Their acts, their words, their thoughts, their very 
looks, have become subjects of party controversy. But he whose 
ambition is of a higher or lower order has no such need of re- 
serve. Talent is of no party, exclusively, nor is justice. 

Among them, but not of them, in the fearful and solitary 
sublimity of genius, stood a gentleman from Virginia * — whom 
it were superfluous to designate — whose speeches were univer- 
sally read, whose satire was universally feared. Upon whose 
accents did this habitually listless and unlistening house hang, 
so frequently, with rapt attention ? Whose fame was identified 
with that body for so long a period ? Who was a more dextrous 
debater ; a riper scholar ; better versed in the politics of our 
own country, or deeper read in the history of others ? Above 
all, who was more thoroughly imbued with the idiom of the Eng- 
lish language ; more completely master of its strength, and 
beauty, and delicacy ; or more capable of breathing thoughts of 
flame in words of magic and tones of silver ? 

There was, also, a son of South Carolina,! still in the service 
of the republic, then, undoubtedly, the most influential member 
of this house. With a genius eminently metaphysical, he applied 
to politics his habits of analysis, abstraction, and condensation, 
and thus gave to the problems of government something of that 
grandeur which the higher mathematics have borrowed from 
astronomy. The wings of his mind were rapid, but capricious, 
and there were times when the light, which flashed from them 
as they passed, glanced like a mirror ir the sun, only to dazzle 
the beholder. Engrossed with his subject, careless of his words, 

• Kaadalph, t Calhoun. 



218 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

his loftiest flights of eloquence were sometimes followed by col- 
loquial or provincial barbarisms. But, though often incorrect, 
he was always fascinating. Language, with him, was merely 
the scaffolding of thought, employed to raise a dome, which, like 
Angelo's, he suspended in the heavens. 

It is equally impossible to forget or to omit a gentleman from 
Kentucky,* whom party has since made the fruitful topic of un- 
measured panegyric and detraction. Of sanguine temperament 
and impetuous character, his declamation was impassioned, his 
retorts acrimonious. Deficient in refinement rather than in 
strength, his style was less elegant and correct than animated 
and impressive. But it swept away your feelings with it like a 
mountain torrent, and the force of the stream left you little leisure 
to remark upon its clearness. His estimate of human nature 
was, probably, not very high. Unhappily, it. is, perhaps, more 
likely to have been lowered, than raised, by his subsequent ex- 
perience. Yet then, and ever since, except when that impru- 
dence, so natural to genius, prevailed over his better judgment, 
he adopted a lofty tone of sentiment, whether he spoke of meas- 
ures or of men, of friend or adversary. On many occasions he 
was noble and captivating. One I can never forget. It was the 
fine burst of indignant eloquence with which he replied to the 
taunting question, " What have we gained by the war ? " 

Nor may I pass over in silence a representative from New 
Hampshire,! who has almost obliterated all memory of that dis- 
tinction by the superior fame he has attained as a senator from 
Massachusetts. Though then but in the bud of his political life, 
and hardly conscious, perhaps, of his own extraordinary powers, 
he gave promise of the greatness he has since achieved. The 
same vigor of thought ; the same force of expression ; the short 
sentences ; the calm, cold, collected manner ; the air of solemn 
dignity ; the deep, sepulchral, unimpassioned voice ; all have 
been developed only, not changed, even to the intense bitterness 
of his frigid irony. The piercing coldness of his sarcasm was, 
indeed, peculiar to him ; they seemed to be emanations from the 
spirit of the icy ocean. Nothing could be at once so novel and 
io powerful ; it was frozen mercury, becoming as caustic as red 
hot iron. 

• Qtay. t Wttatw. 



SOUTH CAROLINA. 319 



Beauty of Nature in Spring Time. 

There is surely no serener or purer pleasure on earth than to 
ramble over the fields, through the forests, and along the Tippling 
streams at this most beautiful and lovely season, and hold com- 
munion with Nature in all the boundlessness of her splendor and 
her glory. At such times, bright thoughts and fancies come and 
go, like the visions of a better land. Yet how few are the gen- 
uine lovers of Nature — persons who adore the visible majesty 
of the universe in all the countless forms in which it is made 
manifest to the human eye ; who regard the stars, the sea, and 
the mountains with appropriate feelings ; whose ears, like the 
chords of the wind harp, can extract music from every passing 
breeze, and whose thoughts penetrate beyond what is visible to 
the throne of the Invisible ! Want of acquaintance with natural 
objects, as well as familiarity with them from infancy to man- 
hood, disqualifies thousands for the true worship of nature. 

The Mammon-worshipers of the city see but little to admire 
in earth, ocean, or sky, and look upon every moment as wasted 
which is spent afar from the wearying strife of business. But in 
every community there are those whose hearts are loyal to nature, 
and catch inspiration from all those objects which are hung, like the 
trophies of divine power, on the walls of the great temple of cre- 
ation. There is a language which is intelligible alike to civilized 
and savage man, that establishes a brotherhood throughout the 
world. It is articulated by the winds and streams, heard in the 
hoarse anthem of the stormy sea, and in the silence of the 
watches of the night, while its characters are seen in the lofty 
ranges of mountains and in the radiant landscapes. They who 
can appreciate this language have sources of happiness which 
are indestructible. They are true poets, whether they chant 
their feelings in verse, or whether their thoughts remain un- 
spoken ; unwritten, and unsung. For there is a poetry of the 
heart as well as of the mind, and though the former may never 
be uttered to the delight of thousands, yet it is an ever-abiding 
fountain of bliss to him who possesses it. 



South Carolina* — Bjltkb. 

If there be one state in the Union, Mr. President, that may 
challenge comparison with any other, for a uniform, zealous, 
ardent, and uncalculating devotion to the Union, that state is 



220 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

South Carolina, Sir, from the very commencement of the 

revolution up to this hour, there is no sacrifice, however great, 
she has not cheerfully made, no service she has ever hesitated 
to perform. 

She has adhered to you in your prosperity ; but in your ad- 
versity she has clung to you with more than filial affection. 
No matter what was the condition of her domestic affairs, though 
deprived of her resources, divided by parties, or surrounded by 
difficulties, the call of the country has been to her as the voice of 
God. Domestic discord ceased at the sound ; every man be- 
came at once reconciled to his brethren, and the sons of Carolina 
were all seen crowding together to the temple, bringing their 
gifts to the altar of their common country. 

What, sir, was the conduct of the South, during the revolu- 
tion ? Sir, I honor New England for her conduct in that glorious 
struggle. But great as is the praise which belongs to her, I think 
at least equal honor is due to the South. Never was there ex- 
hibited, in the history of the world, higher examples of noble 
daring, dreadful suffering, and heroic endurance, than by the 
whigs of Carolina during the revolution. The whole state, from 
the mountains to the sea, was overrun by an overwhelming force 
of the enemy. The fruits of industry perished on the spot 
where they were produced, or were consumed by the foe. 

" The plains of Carolina " drank up the most precious blood 
of her citizens. Black, smoking ruins marked the places which 
had been the habitation of her children. Driven from their 
homes into the gloomy and almost impenetrable swamps, even 
there the spirit of liberty survived, and South Carolina, sus- 
tained by the example of her Sumpters and her Marions, proved, 
by her conduct, that though her soil might be overrun, the spirit 
of her people was invincible. 



Massachusetts and South Carolina. — Wemtkr. 

The eulogium pronounced on the character of the State of 
South Carolina, by the honorable gentleman, for her revolution- 
ary and other merits, meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not 
acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me, in re- 
gard for whatever of distinguished talent or distinguished charac- 
ter South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor ; 
I partake ia the pride of her great names. I claim them for 
countrymen, one and all — the Laurenses, the R.utledge3, the 
Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the Marions, — Americans all, — whose 



MASSACHUSETTS AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 22^ 

fame is no more to be hemmed in by state lines, than then 
talents and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within 
the same narrow limits. 

In their day and generation they served and honored the 
country, and the whole country, and their renown is of the treas- 
ures of the whole country. Him whose honored name the gen- 
tleman himself bears — does he suppose me less capable of 
gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his suffering, than 
if his eyes had first opened upon the light in Massachusetts, 
instead of South Carolina ? Sir, does he suppose it in his power 
to exhibit in Carolina a name so bright as to produce envy in my 
bosom ? No, sir — increased gratification and delight rather. 
Sir, I thank God that, if I am gifted with little of the spirit which 
is said to be able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as 
I trust, of that other spirit, which would drag angels down. 

When I shall be found, sir, in my place here in the Senate, 
or elsewhere, to sneer at public merit, because it happened to 
spring up beyond the little limits of my own state or neighbor- 
hood ; when I refuse for any such cause, or for any cause, the 
homage due to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to sin- 
cere devotion to liberty and the country ; or if I see an uncom- 
mon endowment of Heaven — if I see extraordinary capacity or 
virtue — in any son of the South, and if, moved by local prejudice, 
or gangrened by state jealousy, I get up here to abate a tithe 
of a hair from his just character and just fame, may my tongue 
cleave to the roof of my mouth. 

Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massa 
chusetts. She needs none. There she is ; behold her, and 
judge for yourselves. There is her history ; the world knows it 
by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and 
Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill ; and there they will 
remain forever. And, sir, where American liberty raised its first 
voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it 
still lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full of its original 
spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it ; if party strife 
and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it ; if folly and mad- 
ness, if uneasiness under salutary restraint, shall succeed to 
separate it from that Union, by which alone its existence is made 
sure, — it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which 
its infancy was rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm, with what- 
ever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gathered 
around it ; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amid the proud 
est monuments of its glory, and on the very spot of its origin. 



222 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Party Spirit — m. b. Lamak. 

Party spirit is more to be shunned than any other vice, nol 
■)nly for its disastrous consequences, but because of the prone- 
ness of nature 10 run into it. We are all more or less, at times, 
secretly tinctured with the feeling, and have to rise superior to 
it by the force of reason and virtue : he will not be able to do 
it who parleys for a single moment with his duty. The vice is 
a deceitful one. It often wears the mask of patriotism ; and 
under this flattering disguise, it wins the undiscerning like a har- 
lot in array. 

The vicious woo it, enamored of its prostitutions, whilst many 
worthy citizens and public men are seduced to its embraces 
from its outward similitude to virtue. But no matter in what 
bosom it finds its way ; or in what assembly it may prevail, 
wherever it strikes its poisonous roots, it never fails, sooner or 
later, to extirpate every virtuous sentiment and generous impulse. 

It is a baneful Upas, that permits no moral flower to flourish 
in its shade. The individual who bows to its dominion can 
never generate a noble purpose ; the politician who consults its 
authority is recreant to liberty ; and the nation that shall become 
drunk with its infernal fires will most assuredly forfeit the favor 
of Heaven, and become the self-inflicter of a righteous punish- 
ment. Its march is from folly to madness, from madness to 
crime, from crime to death. Its votaries may change their 
livery, but to be a violent partisan once is to be a partisan for 
life ; he is a spell-bound being, whose infatuations may drive 
him, as occasions require, from turpitude to turpitude, until the 
very blood of infancy becomes the Falernian of his revels. 

It is useless to confirm these truths by historical example : 
for what is all history but a record of the bloody march of fac- 
tion ? Every page is burdened with wars, not for the sacred 
liberties of man, but for the unhallowed exaltation of contending 
aspirants. Do you turn to the ancient mistress of the world ? — 
where is the patriot that doth not sigh at the civil strifes that 
seated Sylla upon bleeding Rome, and his rival on the ruins of 
Carthage ? Do you look to that sea-encircled nation whose re- 
sentful Roses would not bloom together ? — who doth not mark 
in the broils of York and Lancaster a melancholy monument o\ 
the folly and madness of party ? 

Or will you turn for a moment to that lovely region of the 
olive and the vine, where the valleys are all smiling and the peo- 
ple are all cheerful ? — who that hath a spark of nature in hi* 



PARTY SPIRIT. 223 

soul doth not weep at the horrid atrocities perpetrated under the 
name of liberty, by Robespierre and his blood) coadjutors, dur- 
ing the reign of the Jacobin faction in revolutionary France ? 
These examples, by way of melancholy warning, may serve to 
show the unnatural lengths into which deluded and infatuated 
man will hurry when once enlisted under the proscriptive ban- 
ner of party. 



The Same, continued. 

If any other exhibition of the direful effects of party spirit De 
wanting, it is furnished in the history of a people whose career 
is familiar to us all. Look at Mexico. A few years ago she 
awoke from a lethargy of centuries, and in the majesty of eight 
millions of people, shook Castilian bondage from her, like " dew 
drops from a lion's mane." But see her now — the miserable 
victim of self-oppression and debasement ; torn to pieces by 
civil discord ; bleeding at every pore by party rage ; her re- 
sources exhausted, her strength defied, and her very name 
despised. These are the bitter fruits of that dreadful mania 
which makes a whole people offer up, at the shrine of dema- 
gogues, that devotion and sacrifice which is due alone to their 
country. 

Mexico had the chivalry to conquer, without virtue to profit 
by it. Her patriots achieved independence, and demagogues 
ruined her hopes. Enemv as she is to us, I am not a foe to 
her freedom ; for next to the safet} r and welfare of my own 
land, I should rejoice to see our free principles and liberal 
institutions ingrafted into her government, so that they might 
finally spread their benign influence over the whole continent 
of America. 

Once we had the promise of this in the opening career of a 
bold champion of freedom, who, sick of the woes of his distracted 
country, called upon the virtuous of all parties to unite with him 
in the expulsion of faction, and in the chastisement of a bloated 
priesthood. He published to his countrymen a system of gov- 
ernment which promised order, stability, and safety. It was 
received with acclamation. Thousands gathered round his 
standard. They came with high hopes and devoted hearts. 
The cannon soon spoke upon the mountains, and the enemies 
of order trembled. Foes fled before him — Rebellion hid his 
head, and even audacious Bigotry quailed in the glance of his 
eye. He was born to command ; and all voices hailed him the 
savior of his country. 



224 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

But mark the sequel. No sooner was he firmly planted in 
power, the idol of the people, with every obstacle removed 
to the introduction of his new order of things, all eyes expecting 
and all hearts desiring it, when, lo ! the veil — the silver veil 
— was drawn aside, and instead of the mild features of the pat- 
riot, the foul visage of Mokanna, with its terrific deformity, 
burst upon the astonished nation, and " grinned horribly a 
ghastly smile." 

And did not a thousand weapons leap indignantly from their 
scabbards to avenge such perfidy ? No, surely. His duped and 
deluded followers " dropp'd some nv ural tears, but wiped them 
soon ; " and instead of seeking merited vengeance, became more 
wedded to the traitor ; so that he still went on, conquering and 
to conquer, until he waved his banner over bleeding Zacatecas, 
and stamped, in the burning characters of hell, his eternal shame 
on the walls of Bexar. 

And do you ask the moral of this tale ? The discerning mind 
will read in it the awful truth — that party is as cruel as the 
grave ; that its bonds are as strong as death ; that there is no 
receding from its unhallowed infatuations, and that he who enrolls 
his name under its bloody flag divorces himself from humanity, 
and forever sells his soul to the powers of darkness. 



Party Spirit. — Henyb Clay, 

I have seen many periods of great anxiety, of peril, and of 
danger in this country, but I have never before risen to address 
any assemblage, so oppressed, so appalled, and so anxious. And 
I hope it will not be out of place to do here what I have done 
again and again in my private chamber — to implore Him who 
holds the destinies of nations and individuals in his hands, to 
bestow upon our country his blessing, to calm the violence and 
rage of party, to still passion, to allow reason once more to re- 
sume its empire. And may I not also ask Him to bestow upon 
his humble servant the blessing of his smiles, and strength and 
ability to perform the work which now lies before him ? 

If I should venture to trace the cause of our present dangers, 
difficulties, and distractions to its original source, I should ascribe 
h to the violence and intemperance of party spirit. I know the 
jealousies, the fears, and the apprehensions which are engen- 
dered by it ; but if there be in my hearing now, or out of this 
Capitol, any one who hopes, in his race for honors and elevation 



THE MOTHEH OF WASHINGTON. 223 

for higher honors and higher elevation than that he ma) now 
occupy, I beg him to believe that I will never jostle him h the 
pursuit of those honors or that elevation. I assure him, ii my 
wishes prevail, my name shall never be used in competition with 
his ; for when my service is terminated in this body, my minion, 
so far as respects the public affairs of this world, is closed — ana 
closed forever. 

It is impossible for us not to perceive that party spirit and 
future elevation mix more or less in all our affairs, in ai our 
deliberations. At a moment when the White House is in de ger 
of conflagration, instead of all hands uniting to extinguisr the 
flames, we are contending about who shall be its next occupant. 

It is passion and party spirit which I dread in the adjustment 
of the great questions which unhappily, at this time, divide our 
distracted country. Two months ago, all was calm, in compari- 
son to the present moment. Now, all is uproar and confusion, 
and menace to the existence of the Union, and to the happiness 
and safety of this people. 

I entreat you, by all you expect hereafter, and by all that is 
dear to you here below, to repress the ardor of these passions, to 
subdue the violence of party spirit, to listen to the voice of reasor 
and look to the interests of your country. 



The Mother of Washington. — Mb». Siooum«i. 

Long hast thou slept unnoted ! Nature stole 

In her soft ministry around thy bed, 

And spread her vernal coverings, violet-gemmed, 

And pearled with dews. She bade bright Summer bring 

Gifts of frankincense, with sweet song of birds. 

And Autumn cast his yellow coronet 

Down at thy feet, — and stormy Winter speak 

Hoarsely of man's neglect. 

But now we come 
To do thee homage, mother of our chief! — 
Fit homage — such as honoreth him who pays. 

Methinks we see thee, as in olden time, — 
Simple in garb — majestic and serene — 
Unawed by " pomp and circumstance " — in truth 
inflexible, — and with a Spartan zeal 
Repressing Vice, and making Folly grave. 
15 



SWO BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

Thou didst not deem it woman's part to waste 
Life in inglorious sloth, to sport a while 
Amid the flowers, or on the summer wave, 
Then fleet like the ephemeron away, — 
Building no temple in her children's hearts, 
Save to the vanity and pride of life, 
Which she had worshiped. 

Of the might that clothed 
The " Pater Patriae," — of the deeds that won 
A nation's liberty, and earth's applause, 
Making Mount Vernon's tomb a Mecca haunt 
For patriot and for sage, while time shall last, — 
What part was thine, what thanks to thee are due s 
Who, 'mid his elements of being, wrought 
With no uncertain aim — nursing the germs 
Of godlike Virtue in his infant mind, 
We know not — Heaven can tell. 

Rise, noble pile, 
And show a race unborn who rests below, 
And say to mothers, what a holy charge 
Is theirs — with what a kingly power their love 
Might rule the fountains of the new-born mind — 
Warn them to wake at early dawn, and sow 
Good seed before the world doth sow its tares, 
Nor in their toil decline, — that angel hands 
May put the sickle in, and reap for God, 
And gather to his garner. 

Ye, who stand, 
With thrilling breast and kindling cheek, this moiu 
Viewing the tribute that Virginia pays 
To the blest mother of her glorious chief, 
Ye, whose last thought upon your nightly couch, 
Whose first at waking, is your cradled son — 
What though no dazzling hope aspires to rear 
A second Washington, — or leave your name 
Wrought out in marble with your country's tears 
Of deathless gratitude, — yet may ye raise 
A monument above the stars — a soul 
Led by your teachings and your prayers to God 



THE LONE STAB OF TEXAS. ^27 



The Lone Star of Texas. —Webb. 

The brilliancy of its dawn gives token of a bright and glorious 
future. What eye that beheld that star arise but became ani- 
mated and fired in the gaze upon its transcendent beauty, itfc 
wavering light, its divine struggles to gleam in the ascendant * 
Its feeble glimmer was first discerned amid the storm and tern 
pest: occasionally, as the wrathful clouds would separate, its 
faint ray of youthful light and hope would dart forth, sprinkling, 
as with the roseate blush of morn, the thick panoply of surround- 
ing gloom, and finding its way to the deep recesses of many a 
patriot bosom. The thunder of tyranny and the storms of 
oppression being well nigh exhausted, this bright and beautiful, 
this lone star was seen standing out upon the broad and silvery 
heaven of Texas, in solitary but bold relief. 

No sister star was near to lend the light of her countenance, 
or greet it with an approving smile. Not a beam which ema- 
nated from its effulgence was borrowed : not a ray of light did 
it cast over a benighted land, but was given forth from its own 
brilliant and exhaustless orbit. Brighter and purer did it shine 
as it continued to rise and mount into the high heaven of hope 
and promise, but not without sometimes almost failing to give 
token of its presence ; it flickered, as with expiring energy, over 
the fierce and unequal conflict at Conception ; it was seen faintly 
glimmering over the gory plain of Goliad, and sending out the 
last ray of its hope upon the awful scene of the Alamo. 

It moved despondingly through all these scenes of bloody 
strife, presided at each mortal combat, cheered the weak and 
despairing, and shone with fearful dimness in that hour, when 
the light of mortality of a Fannin and his brave companions was 
surrounded in the night of eternal infamy. But lo ! where next 
doth gleam this single star ? Over the immortal struggle of 
San Jacinto it hangs suspended ; its light has relumed ; its rays 
enkindle with a sweeter, brighter, more entrancing fire ; the 
battle rages ; the fight is desperate, deadly ; the neighing of the 
war steed, the groaning of the dying soldier, the piercing, star- 
tling, enthusiastic cry of " Remember the Alamo," all went up to 
heaven in a solemn league, and as they passed away, " the lone 
star of Texas " blazed forth in resplendent beauty and brightness, 
reflecting all over the consecrated ground of Jacinto a light in 
which was seen written in blazing capitals, Victory ! Liberty I 
Texas is free! 



228 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Classics. — Db. Church. 



Perm t me on this occasion to call your attention to one study 
which you may possibly be disposed to relinquish, or to consider 
less worthy your attention than others. Continue to cultivate a 
raste for classical learning. Lay not aside those inimitable 
uncient authors, who have formed the tastes and constituted the 
models of the first minds which have adorned and blessed the 
world. The mere superficial scholar may doubt their utility. 
He who has never discovered their beauties may assert that they 
have none. 

And so may thousands, who attempt to gather gold from the 
surface of your mountains, or to glean a few particles which 
have been deposited in your valleys, assert that there are not rich 
exhaustless stores within the reach of patient perseverance and 
untiring labor. If experience have any authority, the study of 
ancient literature is not useless, and the time devoted to the 
acquisition of classical learning, instead of being wasted, is most 
profitably spent. 

Who have done most honor to themselves, as well as been 
most useful to their fellow-men, in the learned professions ? Who 
have stood with faithfulness at the helm of state, and guided with 
most wisdom and success the destinies of nations ? What mod- 
ern historians are read with most pleasure and with most profit ? 
and whose writings now form our standard works of taste ? 

To show the value of classical learning to the public speaker, 
we need only refer to the history of modern eloquence. With 
what ease did the classic Emmet rivet the attention and excite 
the admiration of his audience ! With what magic spell did the 
classic quotations and allusions of Randolph drop from his lips ! 
and with what agony did his opponents often writhe beneath 
that lash which the polished Greek and the enlightened Roman 
had put into his hands ! Few mental exercises are, perhaps, 
more profitable to the student than the critical study of the 
Greek and Roman classics ; and so numerous are the allusions 
to these, in even English literature, that many of its finest por- 
tions and most exquisite beauties must be measurably lost to him 
who understands not the ancient languages. 



NEW ORLEANS. 229 



. — Lumpkin. 

To live in such a world and age as this brings with it immense 
obligations — a world redeemed with the blood of the Son 01 
God ; an age which prophets and patriarchs desired to see, bui 
died without the sight ; a spot of time most interesting in the eye 
of Heaven, and which, beyond any past period, has witnessed 
the most splendid achievements of mind over matter. You stand, 
as it were, under an opening heaven, by the tomb of a world 
rising from the slumber of ages. Can any be stupid, be half 
awake, in such a day ? Stand erect, I entreat you. Let every 
nerve, mental and bodily, be strung to action. Give your days 
and nights to labor and study. 

Soon you will be ranked among the legislators, magistrates, 
or interpreters of the laws or religion of your country. With 
what diligence, in this spring season of life, should you prepare 
yourselves for the faithful discharge of offices so arduous and 
important ! Shall indolence, or the degrading love of ease and 
pleasure, like a blighting mildew, blast your improvement in the 
bud, destroy the fond hopes of parents and friends, and the specu- 
lations of your country ? Rest assured that, without patient in- 
dustry, the greatest talents and advantages will be fruitless. 
Look to the Platos and Ciceros of antiquity, the Boyles, New- 
tons, and Lockes of modern times ; and they all, with one accord, 
will tell you that industry was the secret by which they were 
enabled to perform such wonders. 



New Orleans. — J. N. Mappit. 

Along the streets of the city of peace and commerce no 
tyrant king ever thunders with subject monarchs chained to his 
wheel ; he brings no curse upon her busy streets from the ago- 
nizing groans of widowed and orphaned millions. Here all is 
life, activity, generous excitement, the rivalry of benevolence, 
and the proudest triumphs of mind. 

Such is New Orleans. The din of commerce rolls along her 
streets by night and by day, as the voice of many waters. She 
sits as a queen upon her alluvial Delta, and the proud, deep Gulf 
of Mexico, like a monarch's bowl at a feast, pours the rushing 
libations of its tides at her feet. She reaches one arm and em- 
braces the Rocky Mountains, while with the other she plays with 



230 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

the silver lakes of the north. She sends her couriers over the 
sounding seas, and every gale under heaven kisses her whitening 
sails, and 'aughs through the cordage of her laden ships. 

We stand near the consecrated ground over which hung the 
cloud, and along which roared the iron storm of battle. The 
unconquered, the unpillaged city is around ; her towers are un 
scathed ; the columns that deployed down on yonder plain are 
now in the world of spirits ; and memory and generous feelings 
of humanity spread the pall of oblivion over the prostrate, hum- 
bled foe. Never again shall the foot of violence tread the soil 
defended by the veterans of the eighth of January. Taught by 
a lesson forever emblazoned on the parchment of historic fame, 
the warriors of other lands shall avoid the grave of British valor, 
and offer no violence to the metropolis of the western world,, as 
she gathers her future power and splendor around her. 

I am not a visionary; yet when I look forward into the future, 
I am astonished at what severe probability unfolds as the desti- 
nies of this city of the South. I strain my aching eyes to catch 
the far off frontiers of the great vale, through which the Father 
of Waters rolls his majestic flood in turbid grandeur ; but it is 
too far for the vision of man. I exhaust horizon after horizon, 
and yet the end is not. Thousands of miles away, to the right 
and to the left, I see every leaping rill that comes laughing down 
the sides of the mountains pointing its way, laden with all that 
agriculture can create, or commerce ask for, toward this city. 
Hills as far distant from each other as the midnight from the 
sunrise, pay their tribute of bright waters to the ocean's eldest 
born, whose last deep tone of inland music rolls like the muffled 
drums of a solemn pageant in the ears of this vast city. Des- 
tined to realize more of the actual efficacy of wealth and moral 
power than the hundred-gated Thebes of olden time, or that 
proud city whose ruins strew the Delta of the Nile, — the Alex- 
andria that was, — the New Orleans of the new world shall first 
conquer the diseases of climate, as she conquered the quondam 
invaders of Peninsular Europe ; and then, as she has braved the 
overflow of the king of rivers, and rolled back his floods, so shall 
her arm of power rear her thousand edifices of splendor and 
luxury, and at the same time the solemn temples sacred to 
eternity. 



THE LOSS OF NATIONAL CHARACTER. 231 



150 On the Adoption of the Constitution. — E. RANDoxpa 

I have labored for the continuance of the Union — the rock of 
our salvation. I believe that as sure as there is a God in heaven 
our safety, our political happiness and existence, depend on the 
union of the states ; and that, without this union, the people of 
this and the other states will undergo the unspeakable calamities 
which discord, faction, turbulence, war, and bloodshed have pro- 
duced in other countries. The American spirit ought to be 
mixed with American pride — pride to see the union magnifi- 
cently triumphant. 

Let that glorious pride which once defied the British thunder 
reanimate you. Let it not be recorded of Americans, that, 
after having performed the most gallant exploits, after having 
overcome the most astonishing difficulties, and after having gained 
the admiration of the world by their imcomparable valor and 
policy, they lost their acquired reputation, their national conse- 
quence and happiness, by their own indiscretion. Let no future 
historian inform posterity that they wanted wisdom and virtue to 
concur in any regular, efficient government. Should any writer, 
doomed to so disagreeable a task, feel the indignation of an hon- 
est historian, he would reprehend and recriminate our folly with 
equal severity and justice. 

Catch the present moment ; seize it with avidity and eagerness, 
for it may be lost never to be regained. If the union be now 
lost, I fear it may remain so forever. I believe gentlemen are 
sincere in their opposition, and actuated by pure motives ; but 
when I maturely weigh the advantages of the union, and dreadful 
consequences of its dissolution ; when I see safety on my right, 
and destruction on my left ; when I behold respectability and 
happiness acquired by the one, but annihilated by the other, — 
i cannot hesitate to decide in favor of the former. 



The Loss of National Character.— Maxey. 

The loss of a firm national character, or the degradation of a 
nation's honor, is the inevitable prelude to her destruction. Be- 
hold the once proud fabric of a Roman empire — an empire 
carrying its arts and arms into every part of the eastern conti- 
nent ; the monarchs of mighty kingdoms dragged at the wheels 
of her triumphal chariots ; her eagle waving over the ruins of 



232 KOSS'S SPEAKER. 

deso;ated countries. Where are her splendor, her wealth her 
power, her glory ? Extinguished forever. Her mouldering 
temples, the mournful vestiges of her former grandeur, afford a 
shelter to her muttering monks. Where are her statesmen, her 
sages, her philosophers, her orators, her generals ? Go to their 
solitary tombs and inquire. She lost her national character, and 
her destruction followed. The ramparts of her national pride 
were broken down, and Vandalism desolated her classic fields. 

Citizens will lose their respect and confidence in our govern- 
ment, if it does not extend over them the shield of an honorable 
national character. Corruption will creep in and sharpen party 
animosity. Ambitious leaders will seize upon the favorable mo- 
ment. The mad enthusiasm for revolution will call into action 
the irritated spirit of our nation, and civil war must follow. The 
swords of our countrymen may yet glitter on our mountains, 
their blood may yet crimson our plains. Such, the warning 
voice of all antiquity, the example of all republics, proclaim, may 
be our fate. But let us no longer indulge these gloomy antici- 
pations. The commencement of our liberty presages the dawn 
of a brighter period to the world. That bold, enterprising spirit 
which conducted our heroes to peace and safety, and gave us a 
lofty rank amid the empires of the world, still animates the bo- 
soms of their descendants. 

Look back to the moment when they unbarred the dungeons 
of the slave, and dashed his fetters to the earth ; when the sword 
of a Washington leaped from its scabbard to revenge the slaugh- 
ter of our countrymen. Place their example before you. Let 
the sparks of their veteran wisdom flash across your minds, and 
the sacred altars of your liberty, crowned with immortal honors, 
rise before you. Relying on the virtue, the courage, the patri* 
otism, and the strength of our country, we may expect our na- 
tional character will become more energetic, our citizens more 
enlightened, and may hail the age as not far distant, when will be 
heard, as the proudest exclamation of man — I am an American 



Influence of National Glory.— Clay. 

We are asked, What have we gained by the war ? I have 
shown that we have lost nothing in rights territory, or honor : 
nothing for which we ought to have contended, according to the 
principles of the gentlemen on the other side, or according to 
our own. Have we gained nothing by the war ? Let any r»ay 



INFLUENCE OF NATIONAL GLORY. 233 

look at the degraded condition of this country before the war,— 
the scorn of the universe, the contempt of ourselves, — and tell me 
if we have gained nothing by the war. What is our present 
situation ? Respectability and character abroad, security and 
confidence at home. If we have not obtained, in the opinion of 
some, the full measure of retribution, our character and consti- 
tution are placed on a solid basis, never to be shaken. 

The glory acquired by our gallant tars, by our Jacksons and 
our Browns on the land — is that nothing ? True, we had our 
vicissitudes ; there were humiliating events which the patriot 
can not review without deep regret ; but the great account, when 
it comes to be balanced, will be found vastly in our favor. Is 
there a man who would obliterate from the proud pages of our 
history the brilliant achievements of Jackson, Brown, and Scott, 
and the host of heroes on land and sea, whom I can not enu- 
merate ? Is there a man who could not desire a participation in 
the national glory acquired by the war ? Yes, national glory, 
which, however the expression may be condemned by some, 
must be cherished by every genuine patriot. 

What do I mean by national glory ? Glory such as Hull, 
Jackson, and Perry have acquired. And are gentlemen insen- 
sible to their deeds, to the value of them in animating the coun- 
try in the hour of peril hereafter ? Did the battle of Thermopylae 
preserve Greece but once ? Whilst the Mississippi continues to 
bear the tributes of the Iron Mountains and the Alleghanies to 
her Delta and to the Gulf of Mexico, the eighth of January shall 
be remembered, and the glory of that day shall stimulate future 
patriots, and nerve the arms of unborn freemen in driving the 
presumptuous invader from our country's soil. 

Gentlemen may boast of their insensibility to feelings inspired 
by the contemplation of such events. But I would ask, Does the 
recollection of Bunker's Hill, Saratoga, and Yorktown afford 
them no pleasure ? Every act of noble sacrifice to the country, 
every instance of patriotic devotion to her cause, has its bene- 
ficial influence. A nation's character is the sum of its splendid 
deeds ; they constitute one common patrimony, the nation's 
inheritance. They awe foreign powers ; they arouse and ani- 
mate our own people. I love true glory. It is this sentiment 
which ought to be cherished ; and, in spite of cavils, and sneers, 
and attempts to put it down, it will finally conduct this nation to 
chat hight to which God and Nature have destined it. 



234 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



War with France.— John j. Ckittendbh. 

I agree with the honorable senator that France owes us 
twenty-five millions of francs, and that she assigns an insufficient 
reason for withholding payment. But this is the whole head and 
front of her offending. We have no other complaint against her. 
Would it be expedient and proper for us to make war for such a 
cause ? There is no other cause of complaint on our part. 
France has in no way offended against us on this occasion, except 
only by her failure to pay the money in question. Shall we go 
to war to enforce its payment ? 

It is needless to discuss the question. Thank God, the danger 
of this war has passed by, and we have, as I believe, an almost 
certain assurance of reconciliation and peace with France. Such 
an issue of this controversy can not be regarded otherwise than 
as a matter of public congratulation. If war had been its result, 
I should have contributed all that was in my humble power to 
render my country successful in that war. War of itself would 
have been a sufficient reason for me to take my country's side, 
without reference to its cause. But, sir, I must confess that I 
should have been most loth to witness any such war as that with 
which we have been threatened. 

A war with whom, and for what ? A war with France, our 
first, our ancient ally, whose blood flowed for us, and with our 
own, in the great struggle that gave us our freedom and made 
us a nation. A war for money ! a petty, paltry sum of money ! 
I know of no instance, certainly none among the civilized nations 
of modern times, of a war waged for such an object ; and if it be 
among the legitimate causes of war, it is surely the most inglo- 
rious of them all. It can afford but little of that generous inspi- 
ration which in a noble cause gives to war its magnanimity and 
•ts glory. War for money must ever be an ignoble strife. On 
*ts barren fields the laurel can not flourish. In the sordid contest 
but little honor can be won, and Victory herself is almost despoiled 
of her triumph. 

If we should attempt by war to compel France to pay the 
money in question, none who know the two nations can doubt 
but the contest would be fierce, bloody, and obstinate. Suppose, 
however, that our success is such as finally to enable us to dic- 
tate terms to France, and to oblige her to pay the money. Im- 
agine, Mr. President, that the little purse, the prize of war and 
carnage, is at last obtained. There it is, sir, stained with the 
blood of Americans, and of Frenchmen* their ancient frienda 



THE UNION. 235 

Could you, sir, behold or pocket that blood-stained purse withou 
some emotions of pain and remorse ? 



The Union.— Andrew P. Butler. 

Thebe has been much said about the feeling of a portion of 
this Union, as being ready to dissolve it. I am not to be terrified 
or controlled by any imputations of that kind. This Union has 
its uses, just according to the use that is made of it. It may be 
used as a great trust to effect the greatest ends that time ever 
committed to human institutions ; and it is in the power of 
patriots and statesmen to make it subserve these ends. But 
when it shall be made a mere instrument of partial legislation, 
and to pander to the views and ends of hypocritical demagogues, 
it will cease to be an object of veneration, unless its worshipers 
shall be like those of Juggernaut, who regard it as a pious 
service to prostrate themselves and be crushed by the wheels of 
his car. I believe I am one of its real friends, and the charge 
of criminal design upon its duration comes with an ill grace from 
those who have adhered to selfish and unjust purposes. 

Those who have introduced here the doctrines which we are 
called upon to question have no right to measure the extent of 
my opposition. What that measure will be I do not know. I 
am willing to accede to any peaceful constitutional measure 
which will tend to preserve the Union itself; these means may 
be too long disregarded ; there is a limit. I am astonished when 
I hear the language sometimes used by the representatives from 
the " old thirteen ; " from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode 
Island, New York, and New Jersey, making war upon their 
brethren of the southern sections of the Union, which seems to 
me but the policy that results in their own suicide. They give 
way to these wild, fanatical suggestions of policy in disregard of 
those admonitions which should address themselves to them from 
their past history, as well as in view of their future destiny. 
They are waging a war against their interest, under the influence 
of feelings which were inculcated by their ancestors, and sowing 
the seeds of disunion. 

I have said what I designed to say at this time ; but with it I 
would, if I dared, make a suggestion to the administration, which 
has now, in a measure, the control of the destinies of this country ; 
and it would be, that they should not experiment upon the disaf- 
fection which exists in one portion of this Union. I kr.ow, sir, it 



ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

is deeper, far deeper, than has ever been exhibited on this floor. 
I fear it has been too much disguised. And it is not confinsd to 
South Carolina, as some seem to consider. Some would be glad 
to see her isolated from others, and thereby made an easier 
victim. The people of other southern states are speaking out, 
and if events are not arrested, there will be but one voice, and 
that voice will come from the mass of the people. The press 
and politicians can not much longer delude them. What state 
may be the first to be involved in measures of resistance I know 
not. South Carolina has sometimes cried out as a sentinel. But 
there are others having greater interests at stake, and which will 
be put ultimately in great danger. They will look to their 
security and interests, and all will move as one man. It is for 
those who have the destinies of this nation in their hands to say 
how far they will respect the feelings of the South. 



The Union. — D. S. Dickinson. 

But a few days since, I visited the hall where the immortal 
Washington, after carving out the liberty which we, in common 
with twenty-five millions of our fellow -beings, this day enjoy, 
with a victorious, yet unpaid army, who adored him, under his 
command, surrendered his commission and his sword voluntarily 
to the representatives of a few exhausted colonies. That sublime 
occasion yet imparts its sacred influences to the place, and there 
is eloquence in its silent walls. But where, said I, are the brave 
and patriotic spirits who here fostered the germ of this mighty 
empire ? Alas ! they have gone to their rewards, and the clods 
of the valley lie heavily on their hearts ; while we, their ungrate- 
ful children, with every element of good before us, forgetting the 
mighty sacrifices they made for their descendants, trifle with the 
rich blessings we inherited, and are ready, with sacrilegious 
hands, to despoil the temple of liberty which they reared by 
years of toil and trial, and cemented in blood and tears. O, 
could we not have deferred this inhuman struggle until the 
departure from amongst us of the revolutionary soldier, with his 
bowed and tottering frame, and his once bright eye dimmed r 
Ask him the cost of liberty, and he will " shoulder his crutch 
and show how fields were won," and tell you of its priceless 
value. 

And yet we are shamelessly struggling in his sight, like mer- 
cenary children, for the patrimony, around the death bed of a 



THE UNION. 23? 

common parent, by whose industry and exertion it was accumu- 
lated, before the heart of him who gave them existence had 
ceased to pulsate. Amid all these conflicts, it has been my 
policy to give peace and stability to the Union, to silence agita- 
tion, to restore fraternal relations to an estranged brotherhood, 
and to lend my feeble aid in enabling our common country to 
march onward to the glorious fruition which awaits her. I have 
opposed, and will hereafter oppose, the monster disunion, in any 
and every form, and howsoever disguised, or in whatsoever con- 
dition — whether in the germ, or the stately upas, with its wide- 
spread branches ; whether it comes from the North or the South, 
or the East or the West ; and whether it consists in denying the 
South her just rights, or in her demanding that to which she is 
not entitled. The union of these states, in the true spirit of the 
constitution, is a sentiment of my life. It was the dream of my 
early years ; it has been the pride and joy of manhood ; and, if 
it shall please Heaven to spare me to age, I pray that its abiding 
beauty may beguile my vacant and solitary hours. 

I do not expect a sudden disruption of the political bonds 
which unite the states of this confederacy ; but I greatly fear a 
growing spirit of jealousy, and discontent, and sectional hate, 
which must, if permitted to extend itself, finally destroy the 
beauty and harmony of the fabric, if it does not raze it to its 
foundation. It can not be maintained by force, and majorities in 
a confederacy should be admonished to use their power justly. 
Let no one suppose that those who have been joined together 
will remain so, despite the commission of mutual wrongs, because 
they have once enjoyed each other's confidence and affection 
and propriety requires them to remain united. A chafed spirit, 
whether of a community or an individual, may be goaded beyond 
endurance ; and the history of the world has proved that the sea- 
son of desperation which succeeds is awfully reckless of conse- 
quences. But woe be to him by whom the offence of disunion 
comes ! He will be held accursed when the bloody mandates of 
Herod and Nero shall be forgiven, and be regarded as a greater 
monster in this world than he who, to signalize his brutal ferocity 
reared a monument of thousands of human skulls, and, in the 
rext, 

" The common damned -will shun his society, 
And look upon themselves as fiends less fouL" 



238 



ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



A Defence of Daniel Webster. — John m. Cla-stok- 

Sib : In regard to the denunciation of the sentiment of my 
nonorable friend from Massachusetts, I have something to say. 
The opinion expressed in this denunciation is, that it would be a 
natural and easy step for the senator from Massachusetts to take, 
to join the enemies of his country in war : in other words, to turn 
traitor, and merit by his treason the most ignominious of all 
deaths, with an immortality of infamy beyond the grave. And 
for what ? The senator from Massachusetts had expressed a 
preference for the constitution to the Capitol of his country. He 
had dared to declare that he prized the magna charta of Ameri- 
can liberty — the sacred bond of our union, the tie which binds 
together twelve millions of freemen — above the stones and 
mortar which compose the crumbling mass within whose walls we 
are assembled. " The very head and front of his offending hath 
this extent ; no more." 

No man here has questioned, in the most violent moments of 
party excitement, — not amidst the fiercest of all political strife, — 
his purity of purpose in debate. Grant to him, what all others 
who have any title to the character of gentlemen demand for 
themselves, that he believed what he said ; grant that, in his 
judgment, as well as that of many here, the very existence of 
our liberties is involved in the surrender of the principle he 
contended for ; grant that the concentration of legislative and 
executive power in the hands of a single man is the death blow 
to the constitution, and that the senator was right in considering 
the proposed appropriation as establishing the very principle 
which gave that fatal blow, — and who is he that, thus believ- 
ing, would support that proposition, because the guns of the enemy 
were battering at the walls of the Capitol ? Where is the coward, 
where is the traitor, who would not rather see the Capitol than 
the constitution of his country in ruins ? or who would lend 
himself to the establishment of a despotism among us, with a 
view to save this building for the despot to revel in ? 

Sir, in the days when Themistocles led the Athenians to victory 
at Salamis, he advised them to surrender their Capitol for the 
preservation of the constitution of their country. That gallant 
people rose under the impulse of patriotism as one man, and 
with a stern resolution to yield life itself rather than abandon 
their liberties, and surrender the proud privilege of legislating 
for themselves to the delegate of a Persian despot, who offe/ed 
them " all their own dominions, together with an accession of 



THE EXPLOITS OF GENERAL TAYLOR. 239 

territory ample as their wishes, upon the single condition that 
they should receive law and suffer him to preside in Greece.'" 
At that eventful period of their history, Crysilus alone proposed 
(he surrender of their constitution to save the Capitol ; and they 
stoned him to death. The public indignation was not yet satis 
fied ; for the Athenian matrons then rose and inflicted the same 
punishment on his wife. Leaving their Capitol, and their noble 
city, rich as it was with the productions of every art, and glitter- 
ing all over with the proudest trophies and the most splendid 
temples in the world, — deserting, in the cause of free government, 
the very land that gave them birth, — they embarked on board 
their ships, and fought that battle, the name of which has made 
the bosoms of freemen to thrill with sympathy in all the ages 
that have followed it, and shall cause the patriot's heart to beal 
higher with emotion through countless ages to come. 

I repeat, sir, what no man who knows the senator from Mas- 
sachusetts has ever doubted, that he was sincere in declaring that 
he viewed the proposition under debate as involving the surrender 
of the most valuable trust reposed in us by the constitution to a 
single man, and as one which, while it delegates the legisla 
tive power to the executive, establishes a precedent to prostrate 
the constitution forever. I do not feel, however, that his conduce 
needs vindication from me or any other ; for, although the 
transient spirit of party may have sought to obscure his exalted 
character in the eyes of those who are easily led by misrep- 
resentation into error, honorable fame has already encircled his 
temples with a wreath of unfading verdure, and impartial his- 
tory shall hereafter emphatically designate him, amidst all the 
compatriots of his day, as the able, the eloquent, the fearless 
champion and defender of his country's constitution. 



The Exploits of General Taylor.— Jefferson Davib. 

Mr. President : This whole country was thrown into one 
general burst of joy, our towns were illuminated, when the little 
army on the Rio Grande repulsed, beat on two fields, a Mexican 
army three times their number, advantageously posted, and 
fighting with obstinacy proportionate to their numerical superi- 
ority. But why recount it ? It was an army, according to the 
senator's dictum, which could have been held in check by two 
hundred and fifty Texan rangers. Is it true, sir, that, those 
soldiers who had spent their lives in acquiring their profession 



240 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

with an aimy of two thousand men, than which none was ever 
more favorably composed for desperate service, old soldiers and 
young leaders, performed only what two hundred and fifty Texan 
rangers could have done so much more effectually ? Shades of 
Ringgold, Mcintosh, Barbour, Ridgely, and Duncan, and thou, the 
hero of the Mexican war, let not your ashes be disturbed. The 
star of your glory will never be obscured by such fogs and 
fleeting clouds as that. It will continue to shine brighter and 
brighter as long as professional skill is appreciated, or bravery 
is admired, or patriotism has a shrine in the American heart. 

But, sir, it was not alone in the United States that the military 
movements and achievements on the Rio Grande were viewed 
with admiration. The greatest captain of the age, the Duke of 
Wellington, the moment he saw the positions taken and the 
combinations made upon the Rio Grande, — the moment he saw 
the communication opened between the depot at Point Isabel and 
the garrison at Fort Brown, by that masterly movement of which 
the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma were a part, — 
exclaimed, that General Taylor is a general indeed. And yet, 
sir, all history is to be rewritten, all the rapture and pride of the 
country at the achievements upon those bloody fields are to 
disappear, and the light of science to pale before the criticism of 
that senator by whom we are told that a little band of mounted 
riflemen could have done that which cost so many American 
lives and hecatombs of Mexicans. 

1 have spoken thus as a simple duty, not from any unkindness 
to the senator, but that I might do justice to many of my com- 
rades, whose dust now mingles with the earth upon which they 
fought — that I might not leave unredressed the wrongs of the 
buried dead. I have endeavored to suppress all personal feeling, 
though the character of the attack upon my friend and general 
might have pardoned its indulgence. It is true that sorrow 
sharpens memory, and that many deeds of noblest self-sacrifice, 
many tender associations, rise now vividly before me. I remem- 
ber the purity of his character, his vast and varied resources ; 
and I remember how the good and great qualities of his heart 
were equally and jointly exhibited when he took the immense 
responsibility under which he acted at the battle of Buena Vista, 
fought after he had been recommended by his senior general to 
retire to Monterey. 

Around him stood those whose lives were in his charge, whose 
mothers, fathers, wives, and children would look to him for their 
return : those were there who had shared his fortunes on otner 
ields ; some who, never having seen a battle, were eager for the 



APOSTROPHE TO WASHINGTON. 24] 

combat, without knowing how direful it would be ; immediately 
about him those loving and beloved, and reposing such confidence 
in their commander that they but waited his beck and will to do 
and dare. On him, and on him alone, rested the responsibility. 
It was in hk power to avoid it by retiring to Monterey, there to 
be invested and captured, and then justify himself under his 
instructions. He would not do it, but cast all upon the die, 
resolved to maintain his country's honor, and save his country's 
flag from trailing in the dust of the enemy he had so often 
beaten, or close the conqueror's career as became the soldier. 
His purpose never wavered, his determination never faltered : 
his country's honor to be untarnished, his country's flag to 
triumph, or for himself to find an honorable grave, was the only 
alternative he considered. Under these circumstances, on the 
morning of the 23d of February, that glorious but bloody conflict 
commenced. It won for him a chaplet that it would be a disgrace 
for an American to mutilate, and which it were an idle attempt 
to adorn. I leave it to a grateful country, which is conscious of 
his services, and possesses a discrimination that is not to be con- 
founded by the assertions of any, however high their position. 



Apostrophe to Washington. — Websteb, 

[On the occasion of the laying of the corner stone of the new wing of the 

Capitol.] 

Fellow-citizens : What contemplations are awakened in 
our minds as we assemble h*e to reenact a scene like that 
performed by Washington ! Methinks I see his venerable form 
now before me, as presented in the glorious statue by Houdon, 
now in the Capitol of Virginia. He is dignified and grave ; but 
concern and anxiety seem to soften the lineaments of his coun- 
tenance. The government over which he presides is yet in the 
crisis of experiment. Not free from troubles at home, he sees 
the world in commotion and arms all around him. He sees that 
imposing foreign powers are half disposed to try the strength of 
the recently established American government. Mighty thoughts 
mingled with fears as well as with hopes, are struggling within 
him. He heads a short procession over these then naked fields. 
he crosses yonder stream on a fallen tree ; he ascends to the top 
of this eminence, whose original oaks of the forest stand as 
thick around him as if the spot had been devoted to Druidical 
worship, and here he performs the appointed duty of the day. 

And now, fellow-citizens, if this vision were a reality, — if 
16 



242 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Washington actually were now amongst us, — and if he coulo 
draw around him the shades of the great public men of his own 
days, patriots and warriors, orators and statesmen, and were to 
address us in their presence, would he not say to us, " Ye men 
of this generation, I rejoice and thank God for being able to see 
that our labors, and toils, and sacrifices were not in vain. You 
are prosperous, you are happy, you are grateful. The fire of 
liberty burns brightly and steadily in your hearts, while duty and 
the law restrain it from bursting forth in wild and destructive 
conflagration. Cherish liberty, as you love it ; cherish its secu- 
rities, as you wish to preserve it. Maintain the constitution which 
we labored so painfully to establish, and which has been to you 
such a source of inestimable blessings. Preserve the union of 
the states, cemented as it was by our prayers, our tears, and our. 
blood. Be true to God, to your country, and to your duty. So 
shall the whole eastern world follow the morning sun, to con- 
template you as a nation ; so shall all generations honor you, as 
they honor us ; and so shall that Almighty Power which so 
graciously protected us, and which now protects you, shower its 
everlasting blessings upon you and your posterity." 

Great father of your country, we heed your words ; we feel 
their force, as if you now uttered them with lips of flesh and 
blood. Your example teaches us, your affectionate addresses 
teach us, your public life teaches us, your sense of the value of 
the blessings of the Union. Those blessings our fathers have 
tasted, and we have tasted, and still taste. Nor do we intend 
that those who come after us shall be denied the same high 
fruition. Our honor, as well as our happiness, is concerned. We 
can not, we dare not, we will not, betray our sacred trust. We 
will not filch from posterity the treasure placed in our hands to 
be transmitted to other generations. The bow that gilds the 
clouds in the heavens, the pillars that uphold the firmament, may 
disappear and fall away in the hour appointed by the will of God ; 
but until that day comes, or so long as our lives may last, no 
ruthless hand shall undermine that bright arch of union and lib- 
ertv which spans the continent from Washington to California. 



TJie Power of Public Opinion. — webstbr, 

We are too much inclined to underrate the power of moral 
influence, and the influence of public opinion, and the influence 
of principles to which great men, the lights of the world and of 



THE POWER OF PuBLIC OPINION. 243 

the age, have given their sanction. Who doubts that, in our own 
struggle for liberty and independence, the majestic eloquence of 
Chatham, the profound reasoning of Burke, the burning satire 
and irony of Colonel Barre, had influences upon our fortunes here 
in America ? They had influences both ways. They tended, 
in the first place, somewhat to diminish the confidence of the 
British ministry in their hopes of success, in attempting to 
subjugate an injured people. They had influence another way, 
because all along the coasts of the country, — and all our people 
in that day lived upon the coast, — there was not a reading man 
who did not feel stronger, bolder, and more determined in the 
assertion of his rights, when these exhilarating accounts from 
the two Houses of Parliament reached him from beyond the 
seas. He felt that those who held and controlled public opinion 
elsewhere were with us ; that their words of eloquence might 
produce an effect in the region where they were uttered ; and, 
above all, they assured them that, in the judgment of the just, 
and the wise, and the impartial, their cause was just, and they 
were right ; and therefore they said, We will fight it out to the 
last. 

Now, gentlemen, another great mistake is sometimes made. 
We think that nothing is powerful enough to stand before auto- 
cratic, monarchical, or despotic power. There is something 
strong enough, quite strong enough, — and, if properly exerted, 
will prove itself so, — and that is the power of intelligent public 
opinion in all the nations of the earth. There is not a monarch 
on earth whose throne is not liable to be shaken by the progress 
of opinion, and the sentiment of the just and intelligent part of 
the people. It becomes us, in the station which we hold, to let 
that public opinion, so far as we form it, have a free course. 
Let it go out ; let it be pronounced in thunder tones ; let it open 
he ears of the deaf ; let it open the eyes of the blind ; and let it 
overy where be proclaimed what we of this great republic think 
of the general principle of human liberty, and of that oppression 
which all abhor. Depend upon it, gentlemen, that between 
these two rival powers, — the autocratic power, maintained by 
arms and force, and the popular power, maintained by opinion, — 
<he former is constantly decreasing, and, thank God, the latter 
is constantly increasing. Real human liberty and human rights 
are gaining the ascendant ; and the part which we have to act, 
in all this great drama, is to show ourselves in favor of those 
r'ghts, to uphold our ascendency, and to carry it on until we 
snail see it culminate in the highest heaven over our heads. 



244 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Popular Excitement in Elections. — McDupfh. 

Sir, I not only maintain that the people are exempt from the 
charge of violence, but that there is a tendency to carry the 
feeling of indifference to public affairs to a dangerous extreme. 
From the peculiar structure and commercial spirit of modern 
society, and the facilities presented, in our country, for the 
acquisition of wealth, the eager pursuit of gain predominates 
over our concern for the affairs of the republic. This is, 
perhaps, our national foible. Wealth is the object of our idolatry, 
and even liberty is worshiped in the form of property. Although 
this spirit, by stimulating industry, is unquestionably excellent in 
itself, yet it is to be apprehended that, in a period of peace and 
tranquillity, it will become too strong for patriotism, and produce 
the greatest of national evils — popular apathy. 

We have been frequently told that the farmer should attend 
to his plough, and the mechanic to his handicraft, during the 
canvass for the presidency. Sir, a more dangerous doctrine 
could not be inculcated. If there is any spectacle from the 
contemplation of which I would shrink with peculiar horror, it 
would be that of the great mass of the American people sunk 
into a profound apathy on the subject of their highest political 
interests. Such a spectacle would be more portentous to the 
eye of intelligent patriotism than all the monsters of the earth, 
and fiery signs of the heavens to the eye of trembling supersti- 
tion. If the people could be indifferent to the fate of a contest, 
for the presidency, they would be unworthy of freedom. If I 
were to perceive them sinking into this apathy, I would even 
apply the power of political galvanism, if such a power could be 
found, to rouse them from their fatal lethargy. Keep the people 
quiet ! Peace ! peace ! Such are the whispers by which the 
people are to be lulled to sleep, in the very crisis of their highest 
concerns. Sir, " you make a solitude, and call it peace." 
Peace ? 'Tis death ! Take away all interest from the people 
in the election of their chief ruler, and liberty is no more. What, 
sir, is to be the consequence ? 

If the people do not elect the president, somebody must. 
There is no special providence to decide the question. Who, 
then, is to make the election, and how will it operate ? You 
throw a general paralysis over the body politic, and excite a 
morbid action in particular members. The general patriotic 
excitement of the people, in relation to the election of the 
president, is as essential to the health and energy of the political 



THE HOUR OF DEATH. 245 

system as circulation of the blood is to the health and energy ot 
the natural body. Check that circulation, and you inevitably 
produce local inflammation, gangrene, and ultimately death. 
Make the people indifferent, destroy their legitimate influence, 
and you communicate a morbid violence to the efforts of those 
who are ever ready to assume the control of such affairs — the 
mercenary intriguers and interested office-hunters of the country. 
Tell me not, sir, of popular violence. Show me a hundred 
political factionists, — men who look to the election of a president 
as the means of gratifying their high or their low ambition, — 
and I will show you the very materials for a mob, ready for any 
desperate adventure connected with their common fortunes. 
The reason of this extraordinary excitement is obvious. It is a 
matter of self-interest, of personal ambition. The people can 
have no such motives. They look only to the interest and glory 
of the country. 



The How of Death. — Mb«. Hbman§. 

Leaves have their time to fall, 
And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath, 

And stars to set ; but all, 
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death. 

Day is for mortal care, 
Eve for glad meetings round the joyous hearth, 

Night for the dreams of sleep, the voice of prayer ; 
But all for thee, thou mightiest of the earth. 

Youth and the opening rose 
May look like things too glorious for decay, 

And smile at thee ; but thou art not of those 
That wait the ripened bloom to seize their prey. 

We know when moons shall wane, 
When summer- birds from far shall cross the sea, 

When autumn's hue shall tinge the golden grain ; 
But who shall teach us when to look for thee ? 

Is it when spring's first gale 
Comes forth to whisper where the violets lie ? 

Is it when roses in our paths grow pale ? 
They have one season ; all are ours to die. 



346 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Thou art where billows foam ; 
Thou art where music melts upon the air ; 

Thou art around us in our peaceful home ; 
And the world calls us forth, and thou art there. 

Thou art where friend meets friend, 
Beneath the shadow of the elm to rest ; 

Thou art where foe meets foe, and trumpets rend 
The skies, and swords beat down the princely crest. 



The Destiny of the United States. — H. w. Hilliaed. 

Sir, is not the language of Berkeley in the progress of fulfill 
ment, when he wrote that immortal line, — 

«' Westward the star of empire takes its way " ? 

When Oregon shall be in our possession, when we shall have 
established a profitable trade with China through her ports, 
when our ships traverse the Pacific as they now cross the Atlan- 
tic, and all the countless consequences of such a state of things 
begin to flow in upon us, then will be fulfilled that vision which 
rapt and filled the mind of Nunez as he gazed over the placid 
waves of the Pacific. 

I will now address myself for a moment to the moral aspect 
of this great question. Gentlemen have talked much and 
eloquently about the horrors of war. I should regret the neces- 
sity of a war ; I should deplore its dreadful scenes ; but if the 
possession of Oregon gives us a territory opening upon the 
nation prospects such as I describe, and if, for the simple 
exercise of our rights in regard to it, Great Britain should 
wag 8 war upon us, — an unjust war, — the regret which every 
one must feel will, at least, have much to counterbalance it. 
One of England's own writers has said, " The possible destiny 
of the United States of America, as a nation of one hundred 
millions of freemen, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
living under the laws of Alfred, and speaking the language of 
Shakspeare and Milton, is an august conception." 

It is an august conception, finely embodied ; and I trust in God 
that it will, at no distant time, become a reality. I trust that the 
world will see, through all time, our people living, not only 
under the laws of Alfred, but that they will be heard V) spesk 



THE FAMINE IN IRELAND. 247 

throughout our wide-spread borders the language of Shakspeare 
and Milton. Above all is it my prayer that, as long as our 
posterity shall continue to inhabit these mountains and plains, 
and hills and valleys, they may be found living under the sacred 
institutions of Christianity. Put these things together, and what 
a picture do they present to the mental eye ! Civilization and 
intelligence started in the East ; they have travelled, and are still 
travelling, westward ; but when they shall have completed the 
circuit of the earth, and reached the extremest verge of the 
Pacific shores, then, unlike the fabled god of the ancients, who 
dipped his glowing axle in the western wave, they will take up 
their permanent abode. 

Then shall we enjoy the sublime destiny of returning these 
blessings to their ancient seat ; then will it be ours to give the 
priceless benefits of our free institutions, and the pure and 
healthful light of the gospel, back to the dark family which nas 
so long lost both truth and freedom ; then may Christianity plant 
herself there, and while with one hand she points to the Polyne- 
sian isles, rejoicing in the late-recovered treasure of revealed 
truth, with the other present the Bible to the Chinese. It is our 
duty to aid in this great work. I trust we shall esteem it as 
much our honor as our duty. Let us not, like some of the British 
missionaries, give them the Bible in one hand and opium in the 
other, but bless them only with the pure word of truth. I hope 
the day is not distant — soon, soon may its dawn arise — to shed 
upon the farthest and the most benighted of nations the splendor 
of more than a tropical sun. 



The Famine in Ireland. — s. s. Prentiss. 

There lies upon the other side of the wide Atlantic a beauti- 
*\il island, famous in story and in song. It has given to the 
world more than its share of genius and of greatness. It has 
been prolific in statesmen, warriors, and poets. Its brave and 
generous sons have fought successfully in all battles but its own. 
In wit and humor it has no equal ; while its harp, like its history, 
uoves to tears by its sweet but melancholy pathos. In this fair 
region God has seen fit to send the most terrible of all those 
fearful ministers who fulfill his inscrutable decrees. The earth 
has failed to give her increase ; the common mother has forgot- 
ten her offspring, and her breast no longer affords them their 
accustomed nourishment. Famine, gaunt and ghastly famine, hen 



248 xvOSS'S SPEAKER. 

seized a nation with its strangling grasp ; and unhappy Ireland, 
in the sad woes of the present, forgets, for a moment, the 
gloomy history of the past. 

In battle, in the fullness of his pride and strength, little recks 
the soldier whether the hissing bullet sing his sudden requiem, 
or the cords of life are severed by the sharp steel. But he who 
dies of hunger wrestles alone, day after day, with his grim and 
unrelenting enemy. He has no friends to cheer him in the 
terrible conflict ; for if he had friends, how could he die of 
hunger ? He has not the hot blood of the soldier to maintain 
him ; for his foe, vampire-like, has exhausted his veins. 

Who will hesitate to give his mite to avert such awful results ? 
Give, then, generously and freely. Recollect that in so doing 
you are exercising one of the most godlike qualities of your 
nature, and at the same time enjoying one of the greatest luxu- 
ries of life. We ought to thank our Maker that he has permitted 
us to exercise equally with himself that noblest of even the divine 
attributes — benevolence. Go home and look at your family, 
smiling in rosy health, and then think of the pale, famine-pinched 
cheeks of the poor children of Ireland, and you will give 
according to your store, even as a bountiful Providence has 
given to you — not grudgingly, but with an open hand ; for the 
quality of benevolence, like that of mercy, 

" Is not strained; 
It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed : 
It blesses him that gives, and him that takes." 



New England and the Union.— s. s. Prentiss. 

Glorious New England ! thou art still true to thy ancient 
fame, and worthy of thy ancestral honors. On thy pleasant 
valleys rest, like sweet dews of morning, the gentle recollections 
of our early life ; around thy hills and mountains cling, like 
gathering mists, the mighty memories of the revolution ; and 
far away in the horizon of thy past gleam, like thy own bright 
northern lights, the awful virtues of our Pilgrim sires. But 
while we devote this day to the remembrance of our native 
land, we forget not that in which our happy lot is cast. We 
exult in the reflection, that though we count by thousands the 
miles which separate us from our birthplace, still our country is 



KEPTJBLICS. 249 

ihe same. We are no exiles meeting upon the banka of a 
foreign river, to swell its waters with our homesick tears. Here 
floats the same banner which rustled above our boyish heads, 
except that its mighty folds are wider, and its glittering stars 
increased in number. 

The sons of New England are found in every state of the 
broad republic. In the East, the South, and the unbounded 
West, their blood mingles freely with every kindred current. 
We have but changed our chamber in the paternal mansion ; in 
all its rooms we are at home, and all who inhabit it are our 
brothers. To us the Union has but one domestic hearth ; its 
household gods are all the same. Upon us, then, peculiarly 
devolves the duty of feeding the fires upon that kindly hearth ; 
of guarding with pious care those sacred household gods. 

We can not do with less than the whole Union ; to us it admits 
of no division. In the veins of our children flows northern 
and southern blood : how shall it be separated ? Who shall put 
asunder the best affections of the heart, the noblest instincts of 
our nature ? We love the land of our adoption ; so do we that 
of our birth. Let us ever be true to both, and always exert 
ourselves in maintaining the unity of our country, the integrity 
of the republic. 

Accursed, then, be the hand put forth to loosen the golden 
cord of union ! thrice accursed the traitorous lips which shall 
propose its severance ! 



Republics.— Hugh S. LboabA. 

The name of republic is inscribed upon the most imperish- 
able monuments of the species, and it is probable that it will 
continue to be associated, as it has been in all past ages, with 
whatever is heroic in character, and sublime in genius, and 
elegant and brilliant in the cultivation of arts and letters. It 
would not be difficult to prove that the base hirelings who have 
so industriously inculcated a contrary doctrine have been com- 
pelled to falsify history and abuse reason. It might be asked, 
triumphantly, what land has ever been visited with the influences 
of liberty, that has not flourished like the spring ? What people 
has ever worshiped at her altars without kindling with a loftier 
spirit and putting forth more noble energies ? Where has she ever 
acted that her deeds have not been heroic ? Where has she ever 
spoken that her eloquence has not been triumphant and sublime ? 

\* th respect to ourselves, would it not be enough to say thai 



250 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

we In e under a form of government and in a state of society to 
which the world has never yet exhibited a parallel ? Is it then 
nothing to be free ? How many nations in the whole annals of 
human kind have proved themselves worthy of being so ? Is it. 
nothing that we are republicans ? Were all men as enlightened, 
as brave, as proud as they ought to be, would they suffer them- 
selves to be insulted with any other title ? Is it nothing that so 
many independent sovereignties should be held together in such 
a confederacy as ours ? What does history teach us of the 
difficulty of instituting and maintaining such a polity, and of the 
glory that, of consequence, ought to be given to those who enjoy 
ts advantages in so much perfection and on so grand a scale ? 
For can any thing be more striking and sublime than the idea 
of an imperial republic, spreading over an extent of territory more 
immense than the empire of the Csesars, in the accumulated 
conquests of a thousand years — without prefects, or proconsuls, 
or publicans — founded in the maxims of common sense — 
employing within itself no arms but those of reason — and 
known to its subjects only by the blessings it bestows or perpetu- 
ates, yet capable of directing against a foreign foe all the 
energies of a military despotism — a republic in which men are 
completely insignificant, and principles and laws exercise, through- 
out its vast dominion, a peaceful and irresistible sway, blending 
in one divine harmony such various habits and conflicting 
opinions, and mingling in our institutions the light of philosophy 
with all that is dazzling in the associations of heroic achieve- 
ment and extended domination, and deep-seated and formidable 
power ! 



Eulogium on Franklin.— Mirabeau, 

Franklin is dead ! Restored to the bosom of the Divinity is 
that genius which gave freedom to America, and rayed forth 
torrents of light upon Europe. The sage whom two worlds 
claim — the man whom the history of empires and the history 
of science alike contend for — occupied, it can not be denied, a 
lofty rank among his species. Long enough have political cabi- 
nets signalized the death of those who were great in their funeral 
eulogies only. Long enough has the etiq jette of courls prescribed 
hypocritical mournings. For their benefactors only, should na- 
tions assume the emblem of grief: and the representatives of 
nations should commend only the heroes of humanity to public 
veneration. 



UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 251 

In the fourteen states of the confederacy, Congress has 
ordained a mourning of two months for the death of Franklin • 
and America is at this moment acquitting herself of this tribute 
of honor to one of the fathers of her constitution. Would it 
not become us, gentlemen, to unite in this religious act; to 
participate in this homage, publicly rendered at once to the 
rights of man and to the philosopher who has contributed most 
largely to their vindication throughout the world ? Antiquity 
would have erected altars to this great and powerful genius, who, 
to promote the welfare of mankind, comprehending both the 
heavens and the earth in the range of his thought, could at 
once snatch the bolt from the cloud and the sceptre from tyrants. 
France, enlightened and free, owes at least the acknowledgment 
of her remembrance and regret to one of the greatest intellects 
that ever served the united cause of philosophy and liberty. I 
propose that it be now decreed that the National Assembly wear 
mourning, during three days, for Benjamin Franklin. 



The Union of Church and State.— Mibabbatt. 

We are reproached with having refused to decree that the 
Catholic religion, Apostolic and Roman, is the national religion. 
To declare the Christian religion national would be to dishonor 
it in its most intimate and essential characteristic. In general 
terms, it may be said that religion is not, and can not be, a 
relation between the individual man and society. It is a relation 
between him and the Infinite Being. Would you understand 
what was meant by a national conscience ? Religion is no more 
national than conscience. A man is not veritably religious in 
so far as he is attached to the religion of a nation. If there 
were but one religion in the world, and all men were agreed in 
professing it, it would be none the less true that each would 
have the sincere sentiment of religion so far only as he should 
be himself religious with a religion of his own ; that is to say, so 
far only as he would be wedded to that universal religion, even 
though the whole human race were to abjure it. And so, from 
whatever point we consider religion, to term it national is to 
give it a designation insignificant or absurd. 

Would it be as the arbiter of its truth, or as the judge of its 
aptitude to form good citizens, that the legislature would make 
a religion constitutional ? But, in the first place, are there 
national truths ? In the second nla.ee can it be ever useful to 



252 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

the public happiness to fetter the conscience of men by a law of 
the state ? The law unites us only in those points where adhe- 
sion is essential to social organization. Those points belong 
only to the superficies of our being. In thought and conscience 
men remain isolated ; and their association leaves to them, in 
these respects, the absolute freedom of the state of nature. 

What a spectacle would it be for those early Christians, who, 
to escape the sword of persecution, were obliged to consecrate 
their altars in caves or amid ruins, — what a spectacle would it 
be for them, could they this day come among us, and witness 
the glory with which their despised religion now sees itself envi- 
roned; the temples, the lofty steeples bearing aloft the glittering 
emblem of their faith; the evangelic cross, which crowns the 
summit of all the departments of this great empire ! What, a 
transporting sight for those who, in descending to the tomb, had 
seen that religion, during their lives, honored only in the lurking- 
places of the forest and the desert ! Methinks I hear them 
exclaim, even as that stranger of the old time exclaimed, on be- 
holding the encampment of the people of God, " How goodly 

ABE THY TENTS, O JACOB, AND THY TABEBNACLES, O IsBAEL ! " 

Calm, then, ah, calm your apprehensions, ye ministers of the 
God of peace and truth. Blush rather at your incendiary exag- 
gerations, and no longer look at the action of this Assembly 
through the medium of your passions. We do not ask it of you 
to take an oath contrary to the law of your heart ; but we do 
ask it of you, in the name of that God who will judge us all, not 
to confound human opinions and scholastic traditions with the 
sacred and inviolable rules of the gospel. If it be contrary to 
morality to act against one's conscience, it is none the less so to 
form one's conscience after false and arbitrary principles. The 
obligation to form and enlifjliten one's conscience is anterior to 
the obligation to follow one^s conscience. The greatest public 
calamities have been caused by men who believed they were 
obeying God, and saving their own souls. 



To the Revolutionary Veter arts. — Daxibl Wbbbtbb. 
[On the laying of the corner stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, June 

Venerable men, you have come down to us from a former 
generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your Jives, 
that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you 



TO THE REVOLUTIONARY VETERANS. 253 

stood, fifty years ago this very hour, with your brothers and 
your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your 
country. Behold, how altered ! The same heavens are indeed 
over your heads ; the same ocean rolls at your feet ; but all else, 
how changed ! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you 
see now no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from 
burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead and 
the dying ; the impetuous charge ; the steady and successful 
repulse ; the loud call to repeated assault ; the summoning of 
all that is manly to repeated resistance ; a thousand bosoms freely 
and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there 
may be in war and death, — all these you have witnessed ; but 
you witness them no more. All is peace. The heights of yonder 
metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with 
wives and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and 
looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, 
have presented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy 
population come out to welcome and greet you with a universal 
jubilee. All is peace ; and God has granted you this sight of 
your country's happiness ere you slumber in the grave for- 
ever. 

But, alas ! you are not all here. Time and the sword have 
thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, 
Pomeroy, Bridge ! — our eyes seek for you in vain amidst this 
broken band. But let us not too much grieve that you have 
met the common fate of men. You lived to see your country's 
independence established, and to sheathe your swords from war. 
On the light of liberty you saw arise the light of peace, like 

" Another morn 
Risen on midnoon ; " — 

and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless. 

But — ah ! — him ! the first great martyr in this great cause ! 
Him ! the premature victim of his own self-devoting heart ! Him ! 
the head of our civil councils, and the destined leader of our military 
bands, whom nothing brought hither but the unquenchable fire of 
his own spirit ! Him ! cut off by Providence in the hour of 
overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom ; falling, ere he saw the 
star of his country rise ; pouring out his generous blood, like 
water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of free- 
dom or of bondage ! — how shall I struggle with the emotions 
that stifle the utterance of thy name ! Our poor work may per- 
ish, but thine shall endure ! This monument may moulder 
away ; the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level 



254 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

witli the sea; but thy memory shall not fail. Wheresoever 
among men a heart shall be found that beats to the transports of 
patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim kindred 
with thy spirit. 

Veterans, you are the remnant of many a well-fought field. 
You bring with you marks of honor fron Trenton and Mon- 
mouth, from Yorktown, Camden, Bennington, and Saratoga. 
Veterans of half a century ! when, in your youthful days, you put 
every thing at hazard in your country's cause, good as that cause 
was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not 
stretch onward to an hour like this. Look abroad into this lovely 
land, which your young valor defended, and mark the happiness 
with which it is filled ; yea, look abroad into the whole earth, and 
see what a name you have contributed to give to your country^ 
and what a praise you have added to freedom, and then rejoice 
in the sympathy and gratitude which beam upon your last 
days from the improved condition of mankind. 



Intelligence a National Safeguard. — Levi Woodbury. 

Our history constantly points her finger to a most efficient 
resource, and indeed to the only elixir, to secure a long life to 
any popular government, in increased attention to useful educa- 
tion and sound morals, with the wise description of equal 
measures and just practices they inculcate on every leaf of 
recorded time. Before their alliance the spirit of misrule will 
always, in time, stand rebuked, and those who worship at the 
shrine of unhallowed ambition must quail. Storms in the 
political atmosphere may occasionally happen by the encroach- 
ments of usurpers, the corruption or intrigues of demagogues, or 
in the expiring agonies of faction, or by the sudden fury of 
popular frenzy ; but, with the restraints and salutary influences 
of the allies before described, these storms will purify as health- 
fully as they often do in the physical world, and cause the tree 
of liberty, instead of falling, to strike its roots deeper. 

In this struggle the enlightened and moral possess also a 
power, auxiliary and strong, in the spirit of the age, which is 
not only with them, but onward, in every thing to ameliorate or 
improve. When the struggle assumes the form of a contest 
with power, in all its subtlety, or with undermining and corrupt 
ing wealth, as it sometimes may, rather than with turbulence, 
sedition, or open aggression by the needy and desperate, it w ; ll 



THE PERMANENCE OF AMERICAN LIBERTY. 255 

be indispensable to employ still greater diligence ; to cherish 
earnestness of purpose, resoluteness in conduct , to apply hard 
and constant blows to real abuses, and encourage not only bold 
free, and original thinking, but determined action. 

In such a cause our fathers were men whose hearts were not 
accustomed to fail them through fear, however formidable the 
obstacles. We are not, it is trusted, such degenerate descendants 
as to prove recreant, and fail to defend, with gallantry and firm- 
ness as unflinching, all which we have either derived from them 
or since added to the rich inheritance. At such a crisis, there- 
fore, and in such a cause, yielding to neither consternation nor 
despair, may we not all profit by the vehement exhortations of 
Cicero to Atticus ? " If you are asleep, awake ; if you are 
standing, move ; if you are moving, run ; if you are running, 
fly ! " All these considerations warn us — the gravestones of 
almost every former republic warn us — that a high standard of 
moral rectitude, as well as of intelligence, is quite as indispen- 
sable to communities, in their public doings, as to individuals, if 
they would escape from either degeneracy or disgrace. 



The Permanence of American Liberty. 

George McDuffie. 

The election of a chief magistrate by the mass of the people 
of an extensive community, was, to the most enlightened nations 
of antiquity, a political impossibility. Destitute of the art of 
printing, they could not have introduced the representative prin- 
ciple into their political systems, even if they had understood it. 
In the very nature of things, that principle can only be co- 
extensive with popular intelligence. In this respect the art of 
printing, more than any invention since the creation of man, is 
destined to change and elevate the political condition of society. 
It has given a new impulse to the energies of the human mind, 
and opens new and brilliant destinies to modern republics, which 
were utterly unattainable by the ancients. The existence of a 
country population, scattered over a vast extent of territory, as 
intelligent as the population of the cities, is a phenomenon which 
was utterly and necessarily unknown to the free states of 
antiquity. All the intelligence which controlled the destiny and 
upheld the dominion of republican Rome was confined to the 
walls of the great city. Even when her dominion extended 
beyond Italy to the utmost known limits of the inhabited world, 



256 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

the city was the exclusive seat both of intelligence and em 
pire. 

Without the art of printing, and the consequent advantages of 
a free press, that habitual and incessant action of mind upon 
mind, which is essential to all human improvement, could no 
more exist, among a numerous and scattered population, than 
the commerce of disconnected- continents could traverse the 
ocean without the art of navigation. Here, then, is the source 
of our superiority, and our just pride as a nation. The states- 
men of the remotest extremes of the Union can converse to- 
gether, like the philosophers of Athens, in the same portico, or 
the politicians of Rome in the same forum. Distance is over- 
come, and the citizens of Georgia and of Maine can be brought 
to cooperate in the same great object, with as perfect a com- 
munity of views and feelings as actuated the tribes of Rome in 
the assemblies of the people. It is obvious that liberty has a 
more extensive and durable foundation in the United States than 
it ever has had in any other age or country. By the repre- 
sentative principle — a principle unknown and impracticable 
among the ancients — the whole mass of society is brought to 
operate in constraining the action of power, and in the conser- 
vation of public liberty. 



Eulogy on Washington,— J. M. Mjlson. 

It must ever be difficult to compare the merits of Washing- 
ton's characters, because he always appeared greatest in that 
which he last sustained. Yet, if there is a preference, it must 
be assigned to the lieutenant general of the armies of Amer- 
ica. Not because the duties of that station were more arduous 
than those which he had often performed, but because it more 
fully displayed his magnanimity. While others become great 
by elevation, Washington becomes greater by condescension. 
Matchless patriot ! to stoop, on public motives, to an inferior 
appointment, after possessing and dignifying the highest offices ! 
Thrice favored country which boasts of such a citizen ! We 
gaze with astonishment : we exult that we are Americans. We 
augur every thing great, s.nd good, and happy. But whence 
this sudden horror ? What means that cry of agony ? O, 
tis the shriek of America ! The fairy vision is fled : Washing- 
ton is — no more ! — 

" How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished ' " 



INTELLECTUAL AND COMMERCIAL WANTS. 257 

Daughters of America, who have prepared the festal bower 
and the laurel wreath, plant now the cypress grove, and water 
it with tears. 



Eulogy on Hamilton. — Nott. 

He stood on an eminence, and glory covered him. From 
that eminence he has fallen — suddenly, forever fallen. His 
intercourse with the living world is now ended ; and those who 
would hereafter find him must seek him in the grave. There, 
cold and lifeless, is the heart which just now was the seat of 
friendship. There, dim and sightless, is the eye whose radiant 
and enlivening orb beamed with intelligence ; and there, closed 
forever, are those lips, on whose persuasive accents we have so 
often, and so lately, hung with transport. From the darkness 
which rests upon his tomb there proceeds, methinks, a light in 
which it is clearly seen that those gaudy objects which men 
pursue are only phantoms. In this light how dimly shines the 
splendor of victory ! how humble appears the majesty of gran- 
deur ! The bubble, which seemed to have so much solidity, has 
burst ; and we again see that all below the sun is vanity. 

Approach, and behold, while I lift from his sepulcher its 
covering. Ye admirers of his greatness, ye emulous of his 
talents and his fame, approach, and behold him now. How 
pale ! How silent ! No martial bands admire the adroitness 
of his movements ; no fascinated throng weep, and melt, and 
tremble at his eloquence. Amazing change ! A shroud ! a 
coffin ! a narrow, subterraneous cabin ! This is all that now 
remains of Hamilton. 



Intellectual and Commercial Wants. — J. c. Calhoun. 

The great principle of demand and supply govern the moral 
and intellectual world no less than the business and commercial. 
If a community be so organized as to cause a demand for high 
mental attainments, they are sure to be developed. If its honors 
and rewards are allotted to pursuits that require their develop- 
ment, by creating a demand for intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, 
justice, firmness, courage, patriotism, and the like, they are sure 
to be produced. But, if allotted to pursuits that require inferior 
qualifies, the higher are sure to decay and perish. 



258 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

1 object to the banking system, because it allots the honors 
and rewards of the community, in a very undue proportion, to a 
pursuit the least of all others favorable to the development of 
the higher mental qualities, intellectual or moral, to the decay 
of the learned professions, and the more noble pursuits of science, 
literature, philosophy, and statesmanship, and the great and more 
useful pursuits of business and industry. With the vast increase 
of its profits and influence, it is gradually concentrating in itself 
most of the prizes of life, — wealth, honor, and influence, — to 
the great disparagement and degradation of all the liberal, and 
useful, and generous pursuits of society. 

The rising generation can not but feel its deadening influence. 
The youths who crowd our colleges, and behold the road to 
honor and distinction terminating in a banking house, will feel 
the spirit of emulation decay within them, and will no longer be 
pressed forward by generous ardor to mount up the rugged 
steep of science, as the road to honor and distinction, when, 
perhaps, the highest point they could attain in what was once 
the most honorable and influential of all the learned professions, 
would be the place of attorney to a bank. 



The Patriotism of the West.—Ci*x. 

No portion of your population is more loyal to the Union than 
the hardy freemen of the West. Nothing can weaken or eradi- 
cate their ardent desire for its lasting preservation. None are 
more prompt to vindicate the interests and rights of the nation 
from all foreign aggression. Need I remind you of the glorious 
scenes in which they participated during the late war — a war 
in which they had no peculiar or direct interest, waged for no 
commerce, no seamen of theirs. But it was enough for them 
that it was a war demanded by the character and the honor of 
the nation. They did not stop to calculate its costs of blood or 
of treasure. 

They flew to arms ; they rushed down the valley of the Mis- 
sissippi, with all the impetuosity of that noble river. They 
sought the enemy. They found him at the beach. They 
fought ; they bled ; they covered themselves and their country 
with immortal glory. They enthusiastically shared in all the 
transports occasioned by our victories, whether won on the 
ocean or on the land. They felt, with the keenest distress, 
whatever disaster befell us. No, sir, I repeat it, neglect, injury 



HECTOR'S ATTACK ON THE GRECIAN WALLS, 259 

itself, can not alienate the affections of the West from this govern- 
ment. They cling to it as to their best, their greatest, their last 
hope. You may impoverish them, reduce them to ruin, by the 
mistakes of your policy, but you can not drive them from y au. 



Hector's Attack on the Grecian Walls.— Pov***] 01 

Then godlike Hector and his troops contend 

To force the ramparts, and the gates to rend ; 

Nor Troy could conquer, nor the Greeks would yiel , 

Till great Sarpedon towered amid the field : 

In arms he shines, conspicuous, from afar, 

And bears aloft his ample shield in air, 

And while two pointed javelins arm his hands, 

Majestic moves along, and leads his Lycian bands. 

So, pressed with hunger, from the mountain brow 

Descends a lion on the flocks below ; 

So stalks the lordly savage o'er the plain, 

In sullen majesty and stern disdain : 

In vain loud mastiffs bay him from afar, 

And shepherds gall him with an iron war ; 

Regardless, furious, he pursues his way ; 

He foams, he roars, he rends the panting prey. 

Unmoved, th' embodied Greeks their fury dare, 

And, fixed, support the weight of all the war; 

Nor could the Greeks repel the Lycian powers, 

Nor the bold Lycians force the Grecian towers. 

As, on the confines of adjoining grounds, 
Two stubborn swains with blows dispute their bounds. 
They tug, they sweat, but neither gain nor yield 
One foot, one inch of the contested field, 
Thus, obstinate to death, they fight, they fall ; 
Nor these can keep, nor those can win the wall. 
Their manly breasts are pierced with many a wound ; 
Loud strokes are heard, and rattling arms resound ; 
The copious slaughter covers all the shore, 
And the high ramparts drop with human gore 

As when two scales are charged with doubtful loads, 
From side to side the trembling balance nods, 



260 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

(While some laborious matron, just and poor, 
With nice exactness weighs her woolly store,) 
Till, poised aloft, the resting beam suspends 
Each equal weight ; nor this, nor that, descends. 
So stood the war, till Hector's matchless might, 
With fates prevailing, turned the scale of fight. 

Fierce as a whirlwind up the walls he flies, 
And fires his hosts with loud-repeated cries. 
" Advance, ye Trojans ; lend your valiant hands ; 
Haste to the fleet, and toss the blazing brands." 
They hear, they run ; and, gathering at his call, 
Raise scaling engines, and ascend the wall : 
Around the works a wood of glittering spears 
Shoots up, and all the rising host appears. 

A ponderous stone bold Hector heaved to throw, 

Pointed above, and rough and gross below : 

Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise 

Such men as live in these degenerate days. 

Yet this, as easy as a swain could bear 

The snowy fleece, he tossed, and shook in air : 

Thus armed, before the folded gates he came, 

Of massy substance and stupendous frame, 

With iron bars and brazen hinges strong, 

On lofty beams of solid timber hung : 

Then thundering through the planks, with forceful sway 

Drives the sharp rock ; the solid beams give way ; 

The folds are shattered ; from the crackling door 

Leap the resounding bars, the flying hinges roar. 

Now rushing in, the furious chief appears, 

Gloomy as night, and shakes two shining spears : 

A dreadful gleam from his bright armor came, 

And from his eyeballs flashed the living flame. 

He moves a god, resistless in his course, 

And seems a match for more than mortal force. 

Then pouring after, through the gaping space 

A tide of Trojans flows, and fills the place ; 

The Greeks behold, they tremble, and they fly ; 

The shore is heaped with death, and tumult rends the sky. 



FOREIGN POLICY OF WASHINGTON. 261 



Progress of the Age, — Edward Evbrbtt 

We need the spirit of '75 to guide us safely amid the dizzy 
activities of the times. While our own numbers are increasing 
in an unexampled ratio, Europe is pouring in upon us her hun- 
dreds of thousands annually, and new regions are added to our 
domain, which we are obliged to count by degrees of latitude 
and longitude. In the mean time, the most wonderful discoveries 
of art, and the most mysterious powers of nature, combine to 
give an almost fearful increase to the intensity of our existence. 
Machines of unexampled complication and ingenuity have been 
applied to the whole range of human industry : we rush across 
the land and the sea by steam ; we correspond by magnetism ; 
we paint by the solar ray ; we count the beats of the electric 
clock at the distance of a thousand miles ; we annihilate time 
and distance ; and, amidst all the new agencies of communica- 
tion and action, the omnipotent Press — the great engine of 
modern progress, not superseded or impaired, but gathering new 
power from all the arts — is daily clothing itself with louder 
thunders. While we contemplate with admiration — almost 
with awe — the mighty influences which surround us, and which 
demand our cooperation and our guidance, let our hearts over- 
flow with gratitude to the patriots who have handed down to us 
this great inheritance. Let us strive to furnish ourselves, from 
the storehouse of their example, with the principles and virtues 
which will strengthen us for the performance of an honored part 
on this illustrious stage. Let pure patriotism add its bond to the 
bars of iron which are binding the continent together ; and, as 
intelligence shoots with the electric spark from ocean to ocean, 
let public spirit and love of country catch from heart to heart. 



The Foreign Policy of Washington, 

Charles James Fox, 

How infinitely superior must appear the spirit and principles 
of General Washington, in his late address to Congress, com 
pared with the policy of modern European courts ! Illustrious 
man ! — deriving honor less from the splendor of his situation 
than from the dignity of his mind. Grateful to France for the 
assistance received from her in that great contest which secured 
the independence of America, he yet did not choose to give up 



262 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

the system of neutrality in her favor. Having once laid down 
the line of conduct most proper to be pursued, not all the insults 
and provocations of the French minister, Genet,* could at all 
put him out of his way, or bend him from his purpose. It must, 
indeed, create astonishment, that, placed in circumstances so 
critical, and filling a station so conspicuous, the character of 
Washington should never once have been called in question — 
that he should in no one instance have been accused either of 
improper insolence, or of mean submission, in his transactions 
with foreign nations. It has been reserved for him to run the 
race of glory without experiencing the smallest interruption to 
the brilliancy of his career. The breath of censure has not 
dared to impeach the purity of his conduct, nor the eye of envy 
to raise its malignant glance to the elevation of his virtues. 
Such has been the transcendent merit and the unparalleled fate 
of this illustrious man. 

How did he act when insulted by Genet ? Did he consider it 
as necessary to avenge himself for the misconduct or madness 
of an individual by involving a whole continent in the horrors of 
war ? No ; he contented himself with procuring satisfaction for 
the insult, by causing Genet to be recalled ; and thus, at once, 
consulted his own dignity and the interests of his country. Happy 
Americans ! while the whirlwind flies over one quarter of the 
globe, and spreads every where desolation, you remain .protected 
from its baneful effects by your own virtues and the wisdom of 
your government. Separated from Europe by an immense 
ocean, you feel not the effect of those prejudices and passions 
which convert the boasted seats of civilization into scenes of 
horror and bloodshed. You profit by the folly and madness of 
the contending nations, and afford, in your more congenial 
clime, an asylum to those blessings and virtues which they wan- 
tonly contemn or wickedly exclude from their bosom. Culti- 
vating the arts of peace under the influence of freedom, you 
advance, by rapid strides, to opulence and distinction ; and if, 
by any accident, you should be compelled to take part in the 
present unhappy contest, — if you should find it necessary to 
avenge insult or repel injury, — the world will bear witness to 
the equity of your sentiments and the moderation of your views ; 
and the success of your arms will, no doubt, be proportioned to 
the justice of your cause. 

* Pronounced Zhtnnt, 



A REPUBLIC THE STRONGEST GOVERNMENT. ££1 



A Republic the Strongest Government. 

T. JEFFER30N, 

[From his inaugural address, as president of the United Statet, 



During the tnroes and convulsions of the ancient world,— 
during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking, through 
blood and slaughter, his long-lost liberty, — it was not wonderful 
that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant 
and peaceful shore ; that this should be more felt and feared 
by some, and less by others, and should divide opinions as to 
measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a 
difference of principle. We have called by different names 
brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans : we 
are all federalists. If there be any among us who would wish 
to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them 
stand, undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error 
of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat 
it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear a republican 
government can not be strong — that this government is not 
strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of 
successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far 
kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that 
this government, the world's best hope, may, by possibility, want 
energy to preserve itself ? I trust not. I believe this, on the 
contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the 
only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to 
the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public 
order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that 
man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, 
then, be trusted with the government of others ? Or have we 
found angels, in the form of kings, to govern him ? Let history 
answer this question. 

Let us, then, with courage and confidence, pursue our own 
federal and republican principles — our attachment to union 
and representative government. Kindly separated by nature 
and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter 
of the globe ; too high-minded to endure the degradations of 
the others ; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for 
our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation ; 
entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our 
c>vn faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honoi 



264 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth 
but from our actions, and their sense of them ; enlightened by 
a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practised in various 
forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, 
gratitude, and the love of man ; acknowledging and adoring an 
overruling Providence, which, by all its dispensations, proves 
that it delights in the happiness of man here, and his greater 
happiness hereafter, — with all these blessings, what more is 
necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people ? 

Still one thing more, fellow-citizens : a wise and frugal govern- 
ment, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall 
leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of 
mdustry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of 
labor the bread it has earned — this is the sum of good govern- 
ment ; and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities 



Scene from Pizarro,— Kotzebxjb. 

Pizarko and Gomez. 

Pizarro. How now, Gomez — what bringest thou ? 

Gomez. On yonder hill, among the palm trees, we have sur 
prised an old Peruvian. Escape by flight he could not, and we 
seized him unresisting. 

Piz. Drag him before us. (Gomez leads in Orozembo.) — 
What art thou, stranger ? 

Oro. First tell me who is the captain of this band of rob- 
bers ? 

Piz. Audacious ! This insolence has sealed thy doom. Die 
thou shalt, gray-headed ruffian. But first confess what thou 
Vnowest. 

Oro. I know that which thou hast just assured me of — that 
shall die. 

Piz. Less audacity might have preserved thy life. 

Oro. My life is as a withered tree, not worth preserving. 

Piz. Hear me, old man. Even now we march against the 
Peruvian army. We know there is a secret path that leads to 
your stronghold among the rocks. Guide us to that, and name 
thy reward. If wealth be thy wish 

Oro. Ha, ha, ha ! 

Piz. Dost thou despise my offer ? 

Oro. Yes, thee and thy offer. Wealth ! — I have the wealth 
of two gallant sons. I have stored in heavea the riches which 




SCENE EROM PIZARRO. 265 

repay good actions here ; and still my chiefest treasure do 1 
wear about me. 

Piz. What is that ? Inform me. 

Oro. I will, for thou canst never tear it from me — an un- 
sullied conscience. 

Piz. I believe there is no other Peruvian who dares speak as 
thou dost. 

Oro. Would I could believe there is no other Spaniard who 
dares act as thou dost. 

Gom. Obdurate pagan, how numerous is your army ? 

Oro. Count the leaves of the forest. 

Gom. Which is the weakest part of your camp ? 

Oro. It is fortified on all sides by justice. 

Gom. Where have you concealed your wives and children ? 

Oro. In the hearts of their husbands and fathers. 

Piz. Knowest thou Alonzo ? 

Oro. Know him ! Alonzo ! Our nation's benefactor, the 
guardian angel of Peru ! 

Piz. By what has he merited that title ? 

Oro. By not resembling thee. 

Piz. Who is this Rolla, joined with Alonzo in command ? 

Oro. I will answer that, for I love to speak the hero's name. 
Rolla, the kinsman of the king, is the idol of our army — in war 
a tiger, in peace a lamb. Cora was once betrothed to him, but 
finding she preferred Alonzo, he resigned his claim for Cora's 
happiness. 

Piz. Romantic savage ! I shall meet this Rolla soon. 

Oro. Thou hadst better not ; the terrors of his noble eye 
would strike thee dead. 

Gom. Silence, or tremble ! 

Oro. Beardless robber, I never yet have learned to tremble 
before man — why before thee, thou less than man ? 

Gom. Another word, audacious heathen, and I strike. 

Oro. Strike, Christian ; then boast among thy fellows, " 1 
too have murdered a Peruvian." 



The Same. Second Scene. 

Sentinel, Rolla, and Alonzo. 

(Enter Rolla, disguised as a monk.) 
Rolla. Inform me, friend — is Alonzo, the Peruvian, confined 
this dungeon ? 



966 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Sent. He is. 

Rolla. I must speak with him. 

Sent. You must not. 

Rolla., He is my friend. 

Sent. Not if he were your brother. 

Rolla. What is to be his fate ? 

Sent. He dies at sunrise. 

Rolla. Ha ! then I am come in time 

Sent. Just to witness his death. 

Rolla. {Advancing towards the door.) Soldier, I must 
speak with him. 

Sent. {Pushing him hack.) Back ! back ! it is impossible. 

Rolla. I do entreat you but for one moment. 

Sent. You entreat in vain : my orders are most strict. 

Rolla. Look on this wedge of massy gold ; look on these 
precious gems. In thy land they will be wealth for thee and 
thine beyond thy hope or wish. Take them — they are thine ; 
let me but pass one moment with Alonzo. 

Sent. Away ! Wouldst thou corrupt me ? — me, an old 
Castilian ! I know my duty better. 

Rolla. Soldier, hast thou a wife ? 

Sent. I have. 

Rolla. Hast thou children ? 

Sent. Four — honest, lovely boys. 

Rolla. Where didst thou leave them ? 

Sent. In my native village, in the very cot where I was born. 

Rolla. Dost thou love thy wife and children ? 

Sent. Do I love them ? God knows my heart — I do. 

Rolla. Soldier, imagine thou wert doomed to die a cruel 
death in a strange land — what would be thy last request ? 

Sent. That some of my comrades should carry my dying 
blessing to my wife and children. 

Rolla. What if that comrade was at thy prison door and 
should there be told thy fellow-soldier dies at sunrise, yet thou 
shalt not for a moment see him, nor shalt thou bear his dying 
blessing to his poor children or his wretched wife, — what 
wouldst thou think of him who thus could drive thy comrade 
from the door ? 

Sent. How ? 

Rolla. Alonzo has a wife and child ; and I am come but to 
receive for her, and for her poor babe, the last blessing of my 
friend. 

Sent. Go in. {Exit sentinel.) 

Rolla. {Calls.) Alonzo ! Alonzo ! 



SCENE FROM PIZAHEO. 267 

(Enter Alonzo, speaking as he comes in.) 

Alon How ! is my hour elapsed ? Well, I am ready. 

Rolli. Alonzo ! — know me ! 

Alon. Rolla ! O Rolla ! how didst thou pass the guard r 

Rolla. There is not a moment to be lost in words. This 
disguise I tore from the dead body of a friar, as I passed our 
field of battle. It has gained me entrance to thy dungeon : now 
cake it thou, and fly ! 

Alon. And Rolla 

Rolla. Will remain here in thy place. 

Alon. And die for me ! No ! rather eternal tortures racK me. 

Rolla. I shall not die, Alonzo. It is thy life Pizarro seeks, 
not Rolla's ; and thy arm may soon deliver me from prison. 
Or, should it be otherwise, I am as a blighted tree in the desert ; 
nothing lives beneath my shelter. Thou art a husband and a 
father : the being of a lovely wife and helpless infant depend 
upon thy life. Go, go, Alonzo ! not to save thyself, but Cora 
and thy child. 

Alon. Urge me not thus, my friend. I am prepared to die 
in peace. 

Rolla. To die in peace ! devoting her you have sworn to 
live for, to madness, misery, and death ! 

Alon. Merciful Heavens ! 

Rolla. If thou art yet irresolute, Alonzo, — now mark me 
well. Thou knowest that Rolla never pledged his word and 
shrunk from its fulfillment. Know then, if thou art proudly 
obstinate, thou shalt have the desperate triumph of seeing Rolla 
perish by thy side. 

Alon. O Rolla, you distract me. Wear you the robe, and 
though dreadful the necessity, we will strike down the guard, 
and force our passage. 

Rolla. What, the soldier on duty here ? 

Alon. Yes, else seeing two, the alarm will be instant death. 

Rolla. For my nation's safety, I would not harm him. That 
soldier — mark me — is a man. All are not men that wear the 
human form. He refused my prayers, refused my gold, denying 
to admit, till his own feelings bribed him. I will not risk a hair 
of that man's head to save my heartstrings from consuming fire. 
But haste. A moment's further pause, and all is lost. 

Alon. Rolla, I fear thy friendship drives me from honor and 
from right. 

Rolla. Did Rolla ever counsel dishonor to his friend ? 
^Throwing the friar'' s garment over his shoulders.) There, 
conceal thy face. Now, God be with thee. 



268 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



American Aristocracy. — J. G. Saxi 

Of all the notable things on earth, 
The queerest one is pride of birth 

Among our " fierce democracy." 
A bridge across a hundred years, 
Without a prop to save it from sneers, 
Not even a couple of rotten peers — 
A thing for laughter, fleers, and jeers, 

Is American aristocracy. 

English and Irish, French and Spanish 
Germans, Italians, Dutch, and Danish, 
Crossing their veins until they vanish 

In one conglomeration ! 
So subtle a tinge of blood, indeed, 
No Heraldry Harvey will ever succeed 

In finding the circulation. 

Depend upon it, my snobbish friend, 
Your family thread you can't ascend, 
Without good reason to apprehend 
You may find it waxed at the other end 

By some plebeian vocation ; 
Or, worse than that, your boasted line 
May end in a loop of stronger twine, 

That plagued some worthy relation. 



Pedantry. — anok . 

Characters. — Digit, a mathematician; Trill, a musician ; Sesquipeda- 
lia, a linguist and philosopher ; Drone, a servant of Mr. Morrell, in 
whose house the scene is laid. 

(Digit, alone.) 
Digit. If theologians are in want of a proof that mankind are 
daily degenerating, let them apply to me, Archimedes Digit. I 
can furnish them with one as clear as any demonstration in 
Euclid's third or fifth book ; and it is this — the sublime and 
exalted science of mathematics is falling into general disuse. 
O that the patriotic inhabitants of this extensive country should 
suffer so degrading a circumstance to exis** ! Why, yesterday, 



PEDANTRY. 269 

i asked a lad of fifteen which he preferred, algebra or geome- 
try ; and ha told me — 0, horrible ! — he told me he had never 
studied them. I was thunderstruck, I was astonished, I was 
petrified. Never studied geometry ! never studied algebra ! and 
fifteen years old! The dark ages are returning. Heathenish 
obscurity will soon overwhelm the world, unless I do something 
immediately to enlighten it; and for this purpose I have now 
applied to Mr. Morrell^ho lives here, and is celebrated for his 
patronage of learning and learned men. (A knock at the door.) 
Who waits there ? 

(Enter Drone.) 
Is Mr. Morrell at home ? 

Drone. (Speaking very slow.) Can't say ; s'pose he is ; indeed, 
[ am sure he is, or was just now. 

Digit. Why, I could solve an equation while you are answer- 
ing a question of five words — I mean if the unknown terms 
were all on one side of the equation. Can I see him ? 

Drone. There is nobody in this house by the name of Qua. 
tion. 

Digit. (Aside.) Now, here's a fellow that can not distinguish 
between an algebraic term and the denomination of his master. 

— I wish to see Mr. Morrell upon an affair of infinite importance. 
Drone. O, very likely, sir. I will inform him that Mr. Qua- 

tion wishes to see him (mimicking) upon an affair of infinite 
importance. 

Digit. No, no. Digit — Digit. My name is Digit. 
Drone. O, Mr. Digy-Digy ! Very likely. (Exit Drone.) 
Digit. (Alone.) That fellow is certainly a negative quantity. 
He is minus common sense. If this Mr. Morrell is the man I 
take him to be, he can not but patronize my talents. Should he 
not, I don't know how I shall obtain a new coat. I have worn 
this ever since I began to write my theory of sines and cotan- 
gents ; and my elbows have so often formed right angles with 
the plane surface of my table, that a new coat or a parallel patch 
is very necessary. But here comes Mr. Morrell. 

(Enter Sesquipedalia.) 
Sir, (bowing low,) I am your most mathematical servant. I am 
sorry, sir, to give you this trouble ; but an affair of consequence 

— (pulling the rags over his elbows) — an affair of consequence, 
as your servant informed you 

Sesquipedalia. Servus non est mihi, domine ; that is, I have 
no servant sir. I presume you have erred in your calculation 
and 

Digit. No, sir The calculations I am about to present you 

M* 



270 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

are founded on the most co rect theorems of Euclid. You may 
examine them, if you pleasti. They are contained in this small 
manuscript. {Producing a folio.) 

Sesq. Sir, you have bestowed a degree of interruption upon 
my observations. I was about — or, according to the Latins, fu- 
turus sum — to give you a little information concerning the lumi- 
nary who appears to lave deceived your vision. My name, sir, 
is Tullius Maro Titus Crispus Sesquipedalia ; by profession a 
linguist and philosopher. The most abstruse points in physics or 
metaphysics are to me transparent as ether. I have come to 
this house for the purpose of obtaining the patronage of a gentle- 
man who befriends all the literati. Now, sir, perhaps I have 
induced conviction in mente tua — that is, in your mind — that 
your calculation was erroneous. 

Digit. Yes, sir, as to your person I was mistaken ; but my 
calculations, I maintain, are correct, to the tenth part of a circu- 
lating decimal. 

Sesq. But what is the subject of your manuscript ? Have you 
discussed the infinite divisibility of matter ? 

Digit. No, sir ; I can not reckon infinity ; and I have nothing 
to do with subjects that can not be reckoned. 

Sesq. Why, I can not reckon about it. I reckon it is divisi- 
ble ad infinitum. But perhaps your work is upon the materi- 
ality of light; and if so, which side of the question do you 
(3spouse ? 

Digit. O, sir, I think it quite immaterial. 

Sesq. What ! light immaterial ! Do you say light is imma- 
terial ? 

Digit. No ; I say it is quite immaterial which side of the 
question I espouse. I have nothing to do with it. And besides, 
I am a bachelor, and do not mean to espouse any thing at present. 

Sesq. Do you write upon the attraction of cohesion ? You 
know matter has the properties of attraction and repulsion. 

Digit. I care nothing about matter, so I can find enough for 
mathematical demonstration. 

Sesq. I can not conceive what you have written upon, then. 
O, it must be the centripetal and centrifugal motions. 

Digit. (Peevishly.) No, no ! I wish Mr. Morrell would come. 
Sir, I have no motions but such as I can make with my pencil 
upon my slate, thus. (Figuring upon his hand.) Six, minus 
four, plus two, equa eight, minus six, plus two. There, those 
are my motions. 

Sesq. O, I perci re you grovel in the depths of arithmetic. 
r suppose you never oared into the regions of philosophy. You 



jt'EDANTRY. 271 

never thought of the vacuum wnich has so long filled the heads 
of philosophers. 

Digit. Vacuum! {Putting his hand to his forehead.) Let 
me think. 

Sesq. Ha ! what ! have you got it sub manu — that is, under 
your hand ? Ha, ha, ha ! 

Digit. Eh! under my hand? What do you mean, sir ? — 
mat my head is a vacuum ? Would you insult me, sir ? insult 
Archimedes Digit ? Why, sir, I'll cipher you into infinite divisi- 
bility. I'll set you on an inverted cone, and give you a centrip- 
etal and centrifugal motion out of the window, sir ! I'll scatter 
your solid contents ! 

Sesq. Da veniam, — that is, pardon me, — it was merely a 
lapsus lingua, — that is 

Digit. Well, sir, I am not fond of lapsus Unguals, at all, sir. 
However, if you did not mean to offend, I accept your apology. 
I wish Mr. Morrell would come. 

Sesq. But, sir, is your work upon mathematics ? 

Digit. Yes, sir. In this manuscript I have endeavored to 
elucidate the squaring of the circle. 

Sesq. But, sir, a square circle is a contradiction in terms. 
You can not make one. 

Digit. I perceive you are a novice in this sublime science. 
The object is to find a square which shall be equal to a given 
circle ; which I have done by a rule drawn from the radii of the 
circle and the diagonal of the square. And by my rule the area 
of the square will equal the area of the circle. 

Sesq. Your terms are to me incomprehensible. Diagonal is 
derived from the Greek dia and goneo, — that is, " through the 
corner." But I don't see what it has to do with a circle ; for if 
I understand aright, a circle, like a sphere, has no corners. 

Digit. You appear to be very ignorant of the science of 
numbers. Your life must be very insipidly spent in poring over 
philosophy and the dead languages. You never tasted, as I have, 
the pleasure arising from the investigation of a difficult problem, 
or the discovery of a new rule in quadratic equations. 

Sesq. Poh ! poh ! ( Turns round in disgust, and hits Digit 
with his cane.) 

r igit. O, you villain ! 

Sesq. I wish, sir 

Digit. And so do I wish, sir, that that cane was raised to the 
fourth power, and laid over your head as many times as there 
are units in a thousand. O ! O ! 

Sesq. Did my cane come in contact Avith the sphere of attrac- 
tion around your shin ? I must confess, sir 



£72 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

(Enter Trill) 
But here is Mr. Morrell. Salve, domine ! Sir, your servant 

Trill. Which of you, gentlemen, is Mr. Morrell ? 

Sesq. O, neither, sir. I took you for that gentleman. 

Trill. No, sir ; I am a teacher of music. Flute, harp, viol 
violin, violoncello, organ, or any thing of the kind ; any instru^ 
ment you can mention. I have just been displaying my powers 
at a concert, and come recommended to the patronage of Mr. 
Morrell. 

Sesq. For the same purpose are that gentleman and myself 
here. 

Digit. (Still rubbing his shin.) O ! O ! 

Trill. Has the gentleman the gout? I have heard of its 
being cured by music. Shall I sing you a tune ? Hem ! hem ! 
Faw 

Digit. No, no ; I want none of your tunes. I'd make that 
philosopher sing, though, and dance, too, if he hadn't made a 
vulgar fraction of my leg. 

Sesq. In veritate, — that is, in truth, — it happened forte, — 
that is, by chance. 

Trill. ( Talking to himself.) If B be flat, me is in E. 

Digit. Ay, sir ; this is only an integral part of your conduct 
ever since you came into this house. You have continued to 
multiply your insults in the abstract ratio of a geometrical pro- 
gression, and at last have proceeded to violence. The dignity 
of Archimedes Digit never experienced such a reduction descend- 
ing before. 

Trill. (To himself.) Twice fa, sol, la, and then comes me 
again. 

Digit. If Mr. Morrell does not admit me soon, I'll leave the 
house, while my head is on my shoulders. 

Trill. Gentlemen, you neither keep time nor chord. But if 
you can sing, we will carry a trio before we go. 

Sesq. Can you sing an ode of Horace or Anacreon ? I should 
like to hear one of them. 

Digit. I had rather hear you sing a demonstration of the 
forty-seventh proposition, first book. 

trill. I never heard of those performers, sir ; where did 
they belong ? 

Sesq. They did belong to Italy and Greece. 

Trill. Ah, Italy ! There are our best masters, such as Mo- 
relli and Fuselli. Can you favor me with some of their comoo- 
sit ions ? 

Sesq. O, yes ; if you have a taste that way, I can j'lrnish 



ON PRECEDENTS IN GOVERNMENT. 273 

you with them, and with Virgil, Sallust, Cicero, Caesar, and 
Quintilian; and I have an old Greek Lexicon which I can 
spare. 

Trill. Ad libitum, my dear sir ; they will make a handsome 
addition to my musical library. 

Digit. But, sir, what pretensions have you to the patronage 
of Mr. Morrell ? I don't believe you can square the circle. 

Trill. Pretensions, sir ! I have gained a victory over the great 
Tantamarrarra, the new opera singer, who pretended to vie with 
me. 'Twas in the symphony of Handel's Oratorio of Saul, where 
you know every thing depends upon the tempo giusto, and where 
the primo should proceed in smorgando, and the secondo, agitati. 
But he was on the third ledger line, I was an octavo below, when, 
with a sudden appoggiatura, I rose to D in alt, and conquered 
him. 

{Enter Drone.) 

Drone. My master says how he will wait on you, gentlemen. 

Digit. What is your name, sir ? 

Drone. Drone, at your service. 

Digit. No, no ; you need not drone at my service. A very 
applicable name, however. 

Sesq. Drone ? That is derived from the Greek draon, that is, 
flying or moving swiftly. 

Trill. He seems to move in andante measure, — that is, to 
♦he tune of Old Hundred. 

Drone. Very likely, gentlemen. 

Digit. Well, as I came first, I will enter first. 

Sesq. Right. You shall be the antecedent, I the subsequent, 
and Mr. Trill the consequent. 

Trill. Right. I was always a man of consequence. Fa, 
sol, la, Fa, sol, &c. (Exeunt.) 



On Precedents in Government. — Lewis Cass, 

Mr. President, eloquent allusions have been made here to 
the ominous condition of Europe. And, truly, it is sufficiently 
threatening to fix the regard of the rest of the civilized world. 
Elements are at work there whose contact and contest must, ere 
long, produce explosions whose consequences no man can foresee. 
The cloud may as yet be no bigger than a man's hand, like that 
seen by the prophet from Mount Carmel ; but it will overspread 
the whole hemisphere, and burst, perhaps in ruins, upon the social 
18 



274 KOSS'S SPEAKER. 

and politica. systems of the old world. Antagonistic principles 
are doing their work there. The conflict can not be avoided. 
The desire of man to govern himself, and the determination of 
rulers to govern him, are now face to face, and must meet in 
the strife of action, as they have met in the strife of opinion. It 
requires a wiser or a rasher man than I am to undertake to 
foretell when and how this great battle will be fought ; but it is 
as sure to come as is the sun to rise again, which is now descend- 
ing to the horizon. What the free governments of the world 
may find it proper to do, when this great struggle truly begins, I 
leave to those upon whom will devolve the duty and the respon- 
sibility of decision. 

It has been well said that the existing generation stands upon 
the shoulders of its predecessors. Its visual horizon is enlarged 
from this elevation. We have the experience of those who have 
gone before us, and our own, too. We are able to judge for 
ourselves, without blindly following in their footsteps. There is 
nothing stationary in the world. Moral and intellectual as well 
as physical sciences are in a state of progress ; or, rather, we 
are marching onwards in the investigation of their true principles. 
It is presumptuous, at any time, to say that " Now is the best 
possible condition of human nature ; let us sit still and be satis- 
fied ; there is nothing more to learn." I believe in no such 
doctrine. I believe we are always learning. We have a right 
to examine for ourselves. In fact, it is our duty to do so. Still, 
sir, I would not rashly reject the experience of the world, any 
more than I would blindly follow it. I have no such idea. I 
have no wish to prostrate all the barriers raised by wisdom, and 
to let in upon us an inundation of many such opinions as have 
been promulgated in the present age. But far be it from me to 
adopt, as a principle of conduct, that nothing is to be done except 
what has been done before, and precisely as it was then done 
So much for precedents ! 



Tight Times, — Albany Regjstbk. 

A great exploder of bubbles is Tight Times. He looks into 
the affairs of gold companies, and they fly to pieces ; into kiting 
banks, and they stop payment ; into rickety insurance companies, 
and they vanish away. He walks around comer lots, draws a 
line across lithographic cities, and they disappear. He leaves 
his footprint among mines, and the rich metal becomes dross 



INTERVENTION IN THE WARS OF EUROPE. 275 

tie breathes upon the cunningest schemes of speculation, and 
they burst like a torpedo. 

A curious fellow is Tight Times, full of idiosyncrasies and 
crotchets. A cosmopolite, a wanderer, too. Where he con.es 
from nobody knows, and where he goes nobody knows. He 
flashes along the telegraph wires, he takes a free passage in 
the cars, he seats himself in the stages, or goes along the turn- 
pikes on foot. He is a gentleman on Wall Street to-day, and 
a back settler on the borders of civilization to-morrow. We 
hear of him in London, in Paris, in St. Petersburg, at Vienna, 
Berlin, at Constantinople, at Calcutta, in China, all over the 
commercial world, in every great city, in every rural district, 
every where. 

There is one way to avoid being bored by this troublesome 
fellow, Tight Times. It is the only way for a country, a city, a 
town, as well as individual men, to keep shut of his presence 
always. Let the country that would banish him beware of 
extravagance, of speculation, of overtrading, of embarking in 
visionary schemes of aggrandizement. Let it keep out of wars, 
avoid internal commotions, and go right along, taking care of its 
own interests and husbanding its resources. Let the city that 
would exclude him be economical in its expenditures, indulging 
in no schemes of speculation, making no useless improvements, 
building no railroads that it can not pay for, withholding its credit 
from mushroom corporations, keeping down its taxes, and going 
right along, taking care of its own interests and husbanding its 
own resources. Let the individual man who would exclude him 
from his domestic circle be industrious, frugal, keeping out of 
the whirlpool of politics, indulging no taste for office, holding up 
his dish when pudding falls from the clouds, laying by something 
when the sun shines to make up for the dark days, — for 

" Some days must be dark and dreary," — 

working on always with a heart full of confidence in the good 
providence of God, and cheerful in the hope of " the good time 
coming." 



Intervention in the Wars of Europe. 

Jbebmiah Clemens, 

Washington has said, " There can be no greater error than 
to expect or calculate upon any real favors from nation to nation. 
It is an illusion which experience must cure, and which a just 



276 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

pride ought to discard." There is a deep wisdom in this ; and 
he who disregards, or treats it lightly, wants the highest attribute 
of a statesman. We can expect nothing as a favor from other 
nations, and none have a right to expect favors from us. Our 
interference, if we interfere at all, must be dictated by interest ; 
and therefore I ask, in what possible manner can we be bene- 
fited ? Russia has done us no injury ; we have, therefore, no 
wrongs to avenge. Russia has no territory of which we wish to 
deprive her, and from her there is no danger against which it is 
necessary to guard. Enlightened self-interest does not offer a 
single argument in favor of embroiling ourselves in a quarrel 
with her. So obvious, so indisputable, is this truth, that the 
advocates of " intervention " have based their speeches almost 
solely on the ground that we have a divine mission to perform, 
and that is, to strike the manacles from the hands of all mankind. 
It may be, Mr. President, that we have such a mission ; but, if 
so, " the time of its fulfillment is not yet." And, for one, I prefer 
waiting for some clearer manifestation of the divine will. By 
attempting to fulfill it now, we employ the surest means of disap- 
pointing that " manifest destiny " of which we have heard so 
much. We have before us the certainty of inflicting deep injury 
upon ourselves, without the slightest prospect of benefiting others. 
Misfortunes may come upon us all ; dishonor attaches only to 
the unworthy. A nation may be conquered, trodden down, — 
her living sons in chains, her dead the prey of vultures, — and 
still leave a bright example, a glorious history, to after times. 
But when folly and wickedness have ruled the hour, — when 
disaster is the legitimate child of error and weakness, — the page 
that records it is but a record of infamy, and pity for misfortune 
becomes a crime against justice. Sir, I do not love that word 
' destiny," — " manifest " or not " manifest." Men and nations 
make their own destinies. 

" Our acts our angels are, or good, or ill — 
Our fatal shadows, that walk by us still." 

The future of this republic is in our hands ; and it is for us 
to determine whether we will launch the ship of state upon a 
wild and stormy sea, above whose blackened waters no sunshine 
beams, no star shines out, and where not a ray is seen but what 
is caught from the lurid lightning in its fiery path. This, sena- 
tors, is the mighty question we have to solve ; and, let me add, 
if the freedom of one continent, and the hopes of four, shall sink 
beneath that inky flood, ours will be the guilt — ours the deep 
damnation. 



THE CONTEST UNEQUAL. 277 

Shall 1 be told these are idle fears ? That, in a war with 
Russia, no matter for what cause waged, we must be the victor? 5 
That, in short, all Europe combined could not blot this Union 
from the map of nations ? Ah, sir, that is not all I fear, i 
fear success even more than defeat. The senator from Michigan 
was right when he said that our fears were to be found at home. 
I do fear ourselves. Commit our people once to unnecessary 
foreign wars, — let victory encourage the military spirit, already 
too prevalent among them, — and Roman history will have no 
chapter bloody enough to be transmitted to posterity side by side 
with ours. In a brief period we shall have reenacted, on a 
grander scale, the same scenes which marked her decline. The 
veteran soldier, who has followed a victorious leader from clime 
to clime, will forget his love of country in his love for his com- 
mander ; and the bayonets you send abroad to conquer a king- 
dom will be brought back to destroy the rights of the citizen, 
and prop the throne of an emperor. 



The Contest unequal. — Sydney Smith. 

Mr. Bailiff, I have spoken so often on this subject, that 
I am sure both you and the gentlemen here present will be 
obliged to me for saying but little, and that favor I am as willing 
to confer as you can be to receive it. I feel most deeply the 
event which has taken place, because, by putting the two houses 
of Parliament in collision with each other, it will impede the 
public business, and diminish the public prosperity. I feel it as 
a churchman, because I can not but blush to see so many digni- 
taries of the church arrayed against the wishes and happiness of 
the people. I feel it, more than all, because I believe it will sow 
the seeds of deadly hatred between the aristocracy and the great 
mass of the people. The loss of the bill I do not feel, and for 
the best of all possible reasons — because I have not the slightest 
idea that it is lost. I have no more doubt, before the expiration 
of the winter, that this bill will pass, than I have that the annual 
tax bills will pass ; and greater certainty than this no man can 
have, for Franklin tells us, there are but two things certain in 
this world — death and taxes. 

As for the possibility of the House of Lords preventing ere 
l ong a reform of Parliament, I hold it to be the most absurd 
notion that ever entered into human imagination. I do not mean 
to be disrespectful, but the attempt of the lords to stop the prog- 



278 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

ress of reform reminds me very forcibly of the great storm of 
Sid mouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington 
on that occasion. In the winter of 1824, there set in a great 
flood upon that town ; the tide rose to an incredible height ; 
the waves rushed in upon the houses, and every thing was threat- 
ened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible 
storm, Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at 
the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling the mop, 
squeezing out the sea water, and vigorously pushing away the 
Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington's 
spirit was up ; but I need not tell you that the contest was une- 
qual. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was 
excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she should not have meddled 
with a tempest. Gentlemen, be at your ease — be quiet and 
steady. You will beat Mrs. Partington. 



Hazards of our National Prosperity, 

W. R. Smith, of Alabama, 

Evekt body knows, Mr. Speaker, what has been the policy 
of this government, with respect to the concerns of Europe, up 
to the present time. And what, I ask, has been the result of that 
policy ? Why, from the small beginning of three millions of 
inhabitants, we have grown to twenty-three millions ; from a 
-«mall number of states, we are now over thirty. But Kossuth 
says that we may depart from that policy now ; that it was wise 
when we were young, but that now we have grown up to be a 
giant, and may abandon it. Ah, sir, we can all resist adversity. 
We know the uses — and sweet are they — of adversity. It is 
the crucible of fortune. It is the iron key that unlocks the gol- 
den gates of prosperity. I say, God bless adversity, when it is 
properly understood ! But the rock upon which men and upon 
which nations split is prosperity. This man says that we 
have grown to be a giant, and that we may depart from the 
wisdom of our youth. But I say that now is the time to take 
care ; we are great enough ; let us be satisfied ; prevent the 
growth of our ambition, to prevent our pride from swelling, and 
hold on to what we have got. 

Do you remember the story of the old governor who had 
been raised from rags ? His king discovered in him merit and 
integrity, and appointed him a satrap, a ruler over many prov- 
inces. He came to be great, and it was his custom io be 
escorted throughout the country several times during the year, 



IMPROVEMENT. £-79 

«i order to see and be seen. He was received and acknowl- 
edged every where as a great man and a great governor. Bui 
he carried about with him a mysterious chest, and every now 
and then he would look into it, and let nobody else see what it 
contained. There was a great deal of curiosity excited by this 
chest ; and finally he was prevailed upon, by some of his friends, 
to let them look into it. Well, he permitted it, and what did they 
see ? They saw an old, ragged, and torn suit of clothes — the 
clothes that he used to wear in his humility and in his poverty ; 
and he said that he carried them about with him in order that, 
when his heart began to swell, and his ambition to rise, and his 
pride to dilate, he could look on the rags that reminded him of 
what he had been, and thereby be enabled to resist the tempta- 
tions of prosperity. Let us see whether this can illustrate any 
thing in our history. Raise the veil, if there is one, which 
conceals the poverty of this Union, when there were but thirteen 
states. Raise the veil that conceals the rags of our soldiers of 
the revolution. Lift the lid of the chest which contains the 
poverty of our beginning, in order that you may be reminded, 
like this old satrap, of the days of your poverty, and be enabled 
to resist the advice of this man, who tells you that you were 
wise in your youth, but that now you are a giant, and may 
depart from that wisdom. Remember the use of adversity, and 
let us take advantage of it, and be benefited by it ; for great is 
the man, and greater is the nation, that can resist the enchant- 
ing smiles of prosperity. 



Improvement.— Dow, Jk. 

My dear friends, I mean to speak of the spirit of improve- 
ment in general terms, as relating to enlightenment, the advance- 
ment of knowledge and progress in the arts and sciences. In 
this respect it is like the rolling avalanche, that leaves detached 
portions of its bulk by the way, and yet keeps augmenting in its 
oircumvolutionary course. Hardy Enterprise first goes forward 
as a pioneer in the untracked wilderness, and commences fight 
with the mighty trees of the forest, cutting them off, some in the 
orime of life, and others in a green old age, and compelling 
tnem to spill their sap upon their country's soil. Then walks 
Agriculture into them 'ere diggins, with spade, harrow, and hoe, 
and scatters the seed of promise hither and thither, assuring the 
hopeful settler that his children's children shall sop their hard- 



280 HOSS'S SPEAKER. 

earnod crumbs in the real gravy of the land. The handmaid 
Art then comes forward, erects edifices of splendor, and leaves 
her ornaments of skill on every side — builds studios for the 
scholars of science, and throws facilities in their way for increas- 
ing their wisdom, or for making egregious fools of themselves. 

Such, my hearers, is the spirit of improvement. Like the 
overflowing of a stream that covers and enriches the valley, it 
betters the natural and social condition of man, opens wide the 
avenues to the temple of reason, and expands the young buds of 
prosperity. Brush away the fog of a couple of centuries, and 
take a look at this, our native land, as it then appeared. Here, 
upon the Atlantic shore, the scream of the panther arose on the 
midnight air with the savage war whoop, and the pale-faced 
pilgrim trembled for the safety of his defenceless home. He 
planted his beans in fear and gathered them in trouble ; his 
chickens and his children were plundered by the foe, and life 
itself was in danger of leaking out from between the logs of his 
hut, even if it were fortified with three muskets, a spunky wife, 
and a jug of whiskey. Yes, my friends, this was then a wild, 
gloomy, and desolate place. Where the Indian squaw hung her 
young pappoose upon the bough, and left it to squall at the hush- 
a-by of the blast, the Anglo-Saxon mother now rocks the cradle 
of her delicate babe on the carpet of peace, and in the gay par- 
lor of fashion. The wild has been changed to a blooming gar- 
den, and its limits are expanding with the mighty genius of 
Liberty. On Erie's banks the flocks are now straying o'er thy- 
my pastures, and a few Dutchmen (but no shepherds) are already 
piping there. The yells of fierce savages now faintly echo from 
beyond the waters of the Mississippi, and the time is not far off* 
when the last Indian will leave his bones to bleach on the rock- 
bound coast of the Pacific. 



Despair.— t>ow, Ja. 

The whitest foam dances upon the darkest billow, and the 
stars shine the brightest when surrounded by the blackest of 
thunder clouds ; even as a diamond pin glistens with the greatest 
effulgence when fastened upon the ebony bosom of an Ethiopian 
wench. So hope mirrors its most brilliant rays in the dark 
wave of despair, and happiness is never so complete as when 
visited occasionally by the ministers of misery. These ups and 
downs in the pathway of man's existence are all for the best 



DESPAIR. 28l 

and yet he allows them to vex and torment his peace till he 
bursts the boiler of his rage, and scalds his own toes. I have 
no doubt but the common run of people would like to have a 
railroad built from here to the grave, and go through by steam 
but if they all worked as easy in life's galling collar as I do, 
they would have things just as they are, — some ups and some 
downs, some sweet and some bitter, some sunshine and some 
storm, — because they constitute a variety. I wouldn't give a shin- 
plaster penny to have the road of existence perfectly level ; for I 
should soon become tired of a dull sameness of prospect, and make 
myself miserable in the idea that I must experience no material 
change, either for better or for worse. Plum pudding is most 
excellent stuff to wind off a dinner with ; but all plum pudding 
would be worse than none at all. So you see, my friends, the 
troubles and trials of life are absolutely necessary to enable us to 
judge rightly of genuine happiness, whenever it happens to enli- 
ven the saturnine region of the heart with its presence. 

If we never were to have our jackets and shirts wet with the 
cold rain of misfortune, we should never know how good it feels 
to stand out and dry in the warm rays of comfort. You needn't 
hesitate ever to travel through swamps of trouble for fear of 
sinking over head in the mud of despondency ; for despair is 
never quite despair. No, my friends, it never comes quite up 
to the mark in the most desperate cases. I know the prospects 
of man are sometimes most tormentingly conglomerous ; but the 
clouds eventually clear away, and his sky again becomes clear 
and quiescent as a basin of potato starch. His sun of ambition 
mav be darkened, his moon of memory turned to blood, and the 
starof his peace blotted from the firmament of his — I don't know 
what ; but he is not entirely a gone goose even in this situation. 
Those semi-celestial angels of light and loveliness, Hope and 
Fancy, will twine the sweetest of roses round his care-wrinkled 
brow ; and while one whispers in his ear, " Don't give up the 
ship," the other dresses up for him a bower of future happiness, 
and festoons it with the choicest of Elysian flowers. The very 
darkest cell of despair always has a gimlet hole to let the glory 
of hope shine in, and dry up the tears of the poor prisoner o/ 
woe. 



282 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Nature.— Dow, J*. 

Mr dear friends, it matters not upon whichsoever side w« 
turn our eyes ; we behold such beauty in its primitive nakedness 
as can not fail to captivate the heart of every true worshiper of 
the God of nature, and make him feel as though ten thousand 
caterpillars were crawling up and down the ossified railway of 
his back. Look at yonder myriads of stars that glitter and 
sparkle from the dome of heaven's high concave. Say, is there 
not beauty in these ? Ay, there is beauty magnificent in these 
little celestial trinkets that stud the ebon brow of night — shin- 
ing, as they do, like a multitude of beacon lights of glory in the 
blue-black of eternity, or like so many cats' eyes in a window- 
less garret. Observe the silvery moon, pale-faced Cynthia, 
wandering Luna, or whatever you choose to call her : see how 
gracefully she promenades the selfsame path which was laid 
out for her at the beginning of the world. Look at the resplen- 
dent sun : see how it has maintained its unsullied brightness 
through the rust-gathering ages of time. Not a single thread 
has been lost from its golden fringe, and not even a fly-speck 
has marred its splendor ; but it is to-day the same beautiful, 
lovely object that it was when it first burst upon paradise, an<b 
rolled back the darkness of chaos into the unknown regions of 
nowhere. 

There is beauty at sunset. Who can look at all the glories 
of an autumnal twilight, and not have the furze upon his hands 
rise up in rapture ? 0, it is, by all odds, the grandest and sub- 
limest picture in the great academy of nature. At the festooned 
gates of the west, angels of peace and loveliness have furled 
their purple wings, and are sweetly sleeping with their heads 
upon pillows of amber, over-canopied with curtains of damask 
and crimson, tempting poor mortals like us to climb up the lad- 
der of imagination, and steal kisses by the bushel. When the 
morning, too, as my friend Hudibras observes, like a boiled 
lobster, begins to turn from brown to red, there is beauty of the 
tallest order. Yes, when Aurora hangs out her red under gar- 
ment from her chamber window, prepares her perfumed toilei, 
and sweeps out the last speck of darkness from the Oriental 
parlor, there is such blushing beauty resting upon the eastern 
hilltops, as can not fail to be appreciated by any one whose 
heartstrings are not composed of catgut and horse hair. 



ATTENTION THE SOUL OP GENIUS. £8* 



Gold, — Thomas Hood. 

Gold ! gold ! gold ! gold ! 
Bright and yellow, hard and cold ; 
Molten, graven, hammered, and rolled; 
Heavy to get and light to hold ; 
Hoarded, bartered, bought, and sold, 
Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled 
Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old, 
To the very verge of the churchyard mold ; 
Price of many a crime untold. 
Gold ! gold ! gold ! gold ! 
Good or bad a thousand fold ! 

How widely its agencies vary, — 
To save — to ruin — to curse — to bless — 
As even its minted coins express ; 
Now stamped with the image of Good Queen Bess, 

And now of a Bloody Mary. 



Attention the Soul of Genius.— J>*. Dbwby. 

The favorite idea of a genius among us is of one who never 
studies, or who studies nobody can tell when, — at midnight, or 
at odd times and intervals, — and now and then strikes out, " at 
a heat," as the phrase is, some wonderful production. " The 
young man," it is often said, " has genius enough, if he would 
only study." Now, the truth is, that the genius will study ; it 
is that in the mind which does study : that is the very nature \)f 
it. I care not to say that it will always use books. All study is 
not reading, any more than all reading is study. 

Attention is the very soul of genius ; not the fixed eye not 
the poring over a book, but the fixed thought. It is, in fact, an 
action of the mind which is steadily concentrated upon one idea, 
or one series of ideas ; which collects, in one point, the rays of 
the soul, till they search, penetrate, and fire the whole train of 
its thoughts. And while the nre burns within, the outside may 
be indeed cold, indifferent, negligent, absent in appearance : he 
may be an idler or a wanderer, apparently without aim or 
intent , but still the fire burns within. And what, though " it 
bursts forth " at length, as has been said, " like volcanic fires, 
with spontaneous, original, native force ? " It only shows the 



284 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

intense action of the elements beneath. What though it breaks 
forth like lightning from the cloud ? The electric fire had been 
collecting in the firmament through many a silent, clear, and 
calm day. What though the might of genius appears in one 
decisive blow, struck in some moment of high debate, or at the 
crisis of a nation's peril ? 

That mighty energy, though it may have heaved in the breast 
of Demosthenes, was once a feeble, infant thought. A mother's 
eye watched over its dawnings. A father's care guarded its 
early youth. It soon trod, with youthful steps, the halls of 
learning, and found other fathers to wake and to watch for it, 
even as it finds them here. It went on, but silence was upon its 
path, and the deep strugglings of the inward soul silently minis- 
tered to it. The elements around breathed upon it, and " touched 
it to finer issues." The golden ray of heaven fell upon it, and 
ripened its expanding faculties. The slow revolutions of years 
slowly added to its collected energies and treasures ; till, in its 
hour of glory, it stood forth embodied in the form of living, 
commanding, irresistible eloquence. The world wonders at the 
manifestation, and says, " Strange, strange that it should come 
thus unsought, unpremeditated, unprepared ! " But the truth is, 
there is no more a miracle in it than there is in the towering of 
the preeminent forest tree, or in the flowing of the mighty and 
irresistible river, or in the wealth and waving of the boundless 
narvest. 



On the supposed Dangers to the Union, — Madison. 

. Hearken not to the unnatural voice which tells you that the 
people of America, knit together as they are by so many cords 
of affection, can no longer live together as members of the same 
family ; can no longer continue the mutual guardians of their 
mutual happiness ; can no longer be fellow-citizens of one great, 
respectable, and flourishing empire. Hearken not to the voice 
which petulantly tells you that the form of government recom- 
mended for your adoption is a novelty in the political world ; 
that it never yet has had a place in the theories of the wildest 
projectors ; that it rashly attempts what it is impossible to accom- 
plish. No, my countrymen ; shut your ears against this unhal- 
lowed language. 

Shut your heart against the poison which it conveys : the 
kindred blood which flows in the veins of American citizens, the 



SUPPOSED DANGERS TO THE UNION. 285 

mingled blood which they have shed in defense of their sacred 
rights, consecrate their union, and excite horror at the idea of 
their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies. And if novelties are to 
be shunned, believe me, the most alarming of all novelties, the 
most wild of all projects, the most rash of all attempts, is that of 
rending us in pieces in order to preserve our liberties and pro- 
mote our happiness. 

But why is the experiment of an extended republic to be re- 
jected merely because it may comprise what is new ? Is it not 
the glory of the people of America, that while they have paid a 
decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, 
they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for cus- 
tom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good 
sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of 
their own experience ? To this manly spirit posterity will be 
indebted for the possession, and the world for the example, of 
the numerous innovations displayed on the American theater in 
favor of private rights and public happiness. 

Had no important step been taken by the leaders of the revo- 
lution for which a precedent could not be discovered, no govern- 
ment established of which an exact model did not present itself, 
the people of the United States might, at this moment, have been 
numbered among the melancholy victims of misguided councils ; 
must, at best, have been laboring under the weight of some of 
those forms which have crushed the liberties of the rest of 
mankind. 

Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human 
race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accom- 
plished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of 
human society. They reared the fabric of governments which 
have no model on the face of the globe. They formed the 
design of a great confederacy, which it is incumbent on their 
successors to improve and perpetuate. If their works betray 
imperfections, we wonder at the fewness of them. If they 
erred most in the structure of the Union, this was the most 
difficult to be executed ; this is the work which has been new- 
modelled by the act of your convention, and it is that act on 
which you are now to deliberate and to decide. 



286 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



The Disinterestedness of Washington, 
Robert Treat Paine. 

To the pen of the historian must be resigned the more 
arduous and elaborate tribute of justice to those efforts of heroic 
and political virtue which conducted the American people to 
peace and liberty. The vanquished foe retired from our shores., 
and left to the controlling genius who repelled them tha grati- 
tude of his own country, and the admiration of the world. The 
time had now arrived which was to apply the touchstone to his 
integrity — which was to assay the affinity of his principles to 
the standard of immutable right. On the one hand, a realm to 
which he was endeared by his services almost invited him to 
empire ; on the other, the liberty to whose protection his life 
had been devoted was the ornament and boon of human nature. 
Washington could not depart from his own great self. His 
country was free — he was no longer a general. Sublime 
spectacle ! more elevating to the pride of virtue than the sover- 
eignty of the globe united to the scepter of ages ! Enthroned 
in the hearts of his countrymen, the gorgeous pageantry of 
prerogative was unworthy the majesty of his dominion. That 
effulgence of military character, which in ancient states has 
blasted the rights of the people whose renown it had brightened, 
was not here permitted, by the hero from whom it emanated, to 
shine with so destructive a luster. Its beams, though intensely 
resplendent, did not wither the young blossoms of our inde- 
pendence ; and liberty, like the burning bush, nourished uncon- 
sumed by the glory which surrounded it. 

To the illustrious founder of our republic was it reserved to 
exhibit the example of a magnanimity that commanded victory, 
of a moderation that retired from triumph. Unlike the er- 
ratic meteors of ambition, whose flaming path sheds a disas- 
trous light on the pages of history, his bright orb, eclipsing the 
luminaries among which it rolled, never portended " fearful 
change " to religion, nor from its " golden tresses " shook pesti- 
lence on empire. What to other heroes has been glory, would 
to him have been disgrace. To his intrepidity it would have 
added no honorary trophy to have waded, like the conqueror of 
Peru, through the blood of credulous millions, to plant the stan- 
dard of triumph at the burning mouth of a volcano. To his 
fame it would have erected no auxiliary monument to have 
invaded, like the ravager of Egypt, an innocent though barba- 
rous nation, to inscribe his name on the pillar of Pompey. 



VINDICATION OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 28' 



Vindication of South Carolina.— McDuttie. 

Sir, I feel that I am called upon to vindicate the motives and 
the character of the people of South Carolina from imputations 
which have been unjustly cast upon them. There is no state in 
this Union distinguished by a more lofty and disinterested patri- 
otism than that which I have the honor, in part, to represent. I 
can proudly and confidently appeal to history for proof of this 
assertion. No state has made greater sacrifices to vindicate the 
common rights of the Union, and preserve its integrity. No 
state is more willing to make those sacrifices now, whether of 
blood or treasure. 

But, sir, it does not belong to this lofty spirit of patriotism to 
submit to unjust and unconstitutional oppression ; nor is South 
Carolina to be taunted with the charge of treason and rebellion, 
because she has the intelligence to understand her rights, and 
the spirit to maintain them. God has not planted in the breast 
of man a higher and a holier principle than that by which he is 
prompted to resist oppression. Absolute submission and passive 
obedience, for every extreme of tyranny, are the characteristics 
of slaves only. 

The oppression of the people of South Carolina has been 
carried to an extremity which the most slavish population on 
earth would not endure without a struggle. Is it to be expected, 
then, that freemen will patiently bow down and kiss the rod of 
the oppressor ? Freemen, did I say ? Why, sir, any one who 
has the form and bears the name of a man — nay, " a beast that 
wants discourse of reason," a dog, a sheep, a reptile — the vilest 
reptile that crawls upon the earth without the gift of reason to 
comprehend the injustice of its injuries — would bite, or bruise, 
or sting the hand by which they were inflicted. 

Is it, then, for a sovereign state to fold her arms and stand 
still in submissive apathy, when the loud clamors of the people 
whom Providence has committed to her charge are ascending to 
heaven for justice ? Hug not this delusion to your breast, I 
pray you. 

It is not for me to say, in this place, what course South Caro- 
lina may deem it her duty to pursue in this great emergency. 
It is enough to say, that she perfectly understands the ground 
which she occupies ; and be assured, sir, that whatever attitude 
she may assume, in her highest sovereign capacity, she will 
firmly and fearlessly maintain it, be the consequences what they 
may The responsibility will not rest upon her, but upon hei 
oppressors. 



285 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 



Intempercmce. — pob. 

We have thus far considered intemperance with reference to 
its effects upon individuals and private communities ; but are we 
not authorized to extend our view ? and in doing so, can we not 
discern its baneful influence, riot only on individuals and private 
communities, but upon the sacred institutions of our country ? 

Does not the history of that great and glorious nation whose 
poetry and eloquence have dazzled whilst they instructed us, 
and whose prowess in arms has been surpassed by no nation on 
earth, teach us this salutary lesson — that luxury and effeminacy 
will paralyze the best institutions, and open a door to the entrance 
of tyranny so wide that no human effort can prevent its encroach- 
ment ? The luxury of the Roman nation consisted not in the 
extravagancy of her citizens, the costliness of her shows, and 
the magnificence of her palaces alone, but in the excesses of 
the table and her bacchanalian indulgences, producing a state of 
morals indicated by scenes of lewdness and debauchery, the 
details of which no one possessed of one feeling of delicacy 
could peruse without sensations of the most unqualified disgust. 

That proud and independent nation, who, having by her mili- 
tary discipline, her capacity to endure fatigue and hardship, and, 
above all, her high sense of the value of freedom, not only 
drove back the armies of the foreign invader, but extended her 
conquests so far as to be denominated the mistress of the world, 
— after accomplishing all this, and, in effecting it, enduring 
without a murmur the scorching heat of the torrid and the 
chilling cold of the frigid zones, — by the withering influence of 
luxury and excess became the willing dupe of the designing and 
ambitious, and tamely submitted to the yoke of tyranny. 

In a government like our own, in which all power resides in 
the people, and where those who govern and legislate do so by 
the will and permission of their constituents, it will ever be 
found that the representatives of the people not only maintain 
the political principles, but likewise personate the moral charac- 
ter of the majority they represent. Show me a profligate and 
intemperate representative, and I will guide you to a licentious 
and drunken community. It can not be otherwise ; the one fol- 
*>ws the other as certainly as the effect follows the cause. 



NO EXCELLENCE WITHOUT LABOR. 28S 



No Excellence without Labor. — vrmi. 

The education, gentlemen, moral and intellectual, of every 
individual, must be, chiefly, his own work. How else could it 
happen, that young men, who have had precisely the same op- 
portunities, should be continually presenting us with such differ- 
ent results, and rushing to such opposite destinies ? Difference 
of talent will not solve it, because that difference is very often in 
favor of the disappointed candidate. 

You will see issuing from the walls of the same college — nay, 
sometimes from the bosom of the same family *wo young men, 
of whom the one shall be admitted to be a genius of high order, 
the other scarcely above the point of mediocrity ; yet you shall 
see the genius sinking and perishing in poverty, obscurity, and 
wretchedness ; while, on the other hand, you shall observe the 
mediocre plodding his slow but sure way up the hill of life, 
gaining stedfast footing at every step, and mounting, at length, 
to eminence and distinction, an ornament to his family, a blessing 
to his country. 

Now, whose work is this ? Manifestly their own. Men are 
the architects of their respective fortunes. It is the fiat of fate 
from which no power of genius can absolve you. Genius, unex- 
erted, is like the poor moth that flutters around a candle till it 
scorches itself to death. If genius be desirable at all, it is only 
of that great and magnanimous kind, which, like the condor of 
South America, pitches from the summit of Chimborazo, above 
the clouds, and sustains itself, at pleasure, in that empyreal 
region, with an energy rather invigorated than weakened by the 
effort. 

It is this capacity for high and long-continued exertion, this 
vigorous power of profound and searching investigation, this 
careering and wide-spreading comprehension of mind, and those 
long reaches of thought, that 

*' Pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon. 
Or dive into the bottom of the deep, 
Where fathom line could never touch the ground, 
And drag up drowned honor by the locks." 

This is the prowess, and these the hardy achievements, which 
are to enroll your names among the great men of the earth. 
19 



290 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Belshazzar*s Vision. — Byww. 

The king was on his throne, 

The satraps thronged the hall ; 
A thousand bright lamps shone 

O'er that high festival. 
A thousand cups of gold, 

In Judah deemed divine, 
Jehovah's vessels, hold 

The godless heathen's wine. 

In that same hour and hall, 

The fingers of a hand 
Came forth against the wall, 

And wrote as if on sand ; 
The fingers of a man ; — 

A solitary hand 
Along the letters ran, 

And traced them like a wand. 

The monarch saw, and shook, 

And bade no more rejoice ; 
All bloodless waxed his look, 

And tremulous his voice. 
" Let the men of lore appear, 

The wisest of the earth, 
And expound the words of fear 

Which mar our royal mirth." 

Chaldea's seers are good, 

But here they have no skill • 
And the unknown letters stood 

Untold and awful still. 
And Babel's men of age 

Are wise and deep in lore ; 
But now they were not sage : 

They saw, but knew no more. 

A captive in the land, 

A stranger and a youth 
He heard the king's command, 

He saw that writing's truth 



ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN. 

The lamps around were bright, 
The prophecy in view ; 

He read it on that night : 
The morrow proved it true. 

" Belshazzar's grave is made, 

His kingdom passed away ; 
He, in the balance weighed, 

Is light and worthless clay— 
The shroud his robe of state, 

His canopy the stone : 
The Mede is at his gate ! 

The Persian on his throne ! " 



Address to the Ocean.— Btbo*. 

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll ! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. 
Man marks the earth with ruin : his control 
Stops with the shore ; — upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own ; 
When for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
He sinks into thy depths, with bubbling groan, 
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. 

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, 
And monarchs tremble in their capitals, — 
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 
Their clay creator the vain title take 
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war, — 
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, 
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 
Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar 

Thy shores are empires, changed m all save thee : 
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they ? 
Thy waters wasted them while they were free, 
And many a tyrant since : their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage : their decay 



292 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

Has dried up realms to deserts. Not so thou . 
Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play, 
Time writes no wrinkles on thine azure brow : 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. 

Thou glorious mirror, where th' Almighty's form 
Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time, 
(Calm or convulsed, in breeze, or gale, or storm, 
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 
Dark-heaving,) — boundless, endless, and sublime — 
The image of Eternity — the throne 
Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime 
The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone 
Obevs thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 



The Sum-burnt Man. — Stahl. 

An affidavit was made by Augustus Dormouse yesterday after 
noon, against Clarence Fitz-Butter, for burning him with a burn- 
ing glass. 

Augustus Dormouse, being sworn by the recorder, deposed : 
Time of the alleged offence was about two o'clock, P. M., on 
Tuesday afternoon. Place, shade of a tree, on the Neutral 
Ground. Deponent was asleep ; was oppressed by the sultriness 
of the weather, and wished for a little repose. Was quite sound 
asleep when accused came across him. Felt something sting 
him behind — on the back, between the shoulders. Had no 
jacket on. Shirt slightly torn. Pain increased till it felt like a 
coal of fire. Screamed, and awoke. Saw accused draw back 
a burning glass, and slip it in his pocket. 

Cross-examined : Does not consider himself a vagrant. Is of 
a poetical temperament, and likes the look of green things. 1 ias 
no particular residence. Does small chores for a living. Native 
of Indiana — of highly respectable family. 

Clarence Fitz-Butter, a quizzical-looking vagabond, who was 
much better dressed than the plaintiff, and carried several stumps 
of cigars in his pockets, very offensive to the smell, and an in- 
congruous assortment of burning, mostly spectacle, glasses, here 
begged the recorder to allow him to explain. 

The recorder granted the request of the prisoner. 

" [ am a philosopher," observed Fitz-Butter, " and am pecu 
liarlv inclined to the investigation of light. I have Derused the 



NOTHING IN IT. 293 

works of Herschel, Davy, Daguerre, Faraday, and Draper. My 
vest pocket is a laboratory. In it I constantly keep a supply of 
sun glasses. I make it a point to draw a focus as often as possi- 
ble. I wish not to allow a ray to pass me. Every beam I sub- 
ject to my glass. Sir, this is necessary with my theory of nature. 
I am of the opinion that every thing in nature is combustible, or it 
is not combustible. How simple an arrangement ! how concise 
a method ! Combustible — non-combustible. With my illumi- 
nated foci, I explore the hidden arcana of nature. I carry the 
torch into her darkest labyrinths. I apply a match to her, and 
she reports or she does not report. I have, in my busy and de- 
voted life, accumulated a great store of facts. I will give your 
honor a list of the combustible objects in nature — a list " 

" I will not listen," said the justice. " What have you to ob- 
serve relative to burning Augustus Dormouse ?" 

" This," resumed Fitz-Butter. "Accidentally, I encountered 
the prone body of the individual responding to the appellation of 
Augustus Dormouse. Him I had never seen before, and there- 
fore not examined. Now, was the sleeper combustible, or was 
he not ? Is he — a salamander, and can stand fire ? With the 
thought, instantly I produced my sun glass. His back is ex- 
posed, his shirt being torn between the shoulders. I draw a 
focus on the exposed skin. I lay my tablets on the grass, in 
readiness to record any important and wonderful discovery I may 
make. But the sleeper stirs in his sleep — he is combustible — 
he wakes, and stares with bestial rage upon me. Upon me — a 
philosopher ! Nay, more ; he complains to the police, he causes 
my arrest, he heaps upon me the disgrace of a public exhibi- 
tion and a penal trial. What does he not deserve ? I appeal to 
your honor, what does he not deserve ? Punish the Vandal, 
recorder, to the utmost extent the laws of the country and your 
official oath will permit." 



Nothing in it. — Charles Mathews. 

Leech. But you don't laugh, Coldstream ! Come, man, be 
amused, for once in your life. You don't laugh. 

Sir Charles. O, yes, I do. You mistake ; I laughed twice, 
distinctly — only, the fact is, I am bored to death. 

Leech. Bored ? What ! after such a feast as that you have 
given us ? Look at me. I'm inspired. I'm a king at thia 
oioment, and all the world is at my feet. 



294 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Sir C. My dear Leech, you began life late. \ou are a young 
fellow, — forty-five, — and have the world yet before you. I 
started at thirteen, lived quick, and exhausted the whole round 
of pleasui e before I was thirty. I've tried every thing, heard 
every thing, done every thing, know every thing ; and here I am, 
a man of thirty-three, literally used up — completely blase ! 

Leech. Nonsense, man ! Used up, indeed ! with your wealth, 
with your twenty estates in the sunniest spots in England, — not 
to mention that Utopia, within four walls, in the Rue de Provence^ 
in Paris. 

Sir C. I'm dead with ennui. 

Leech. Ennui ! poor Croesus. 

Sir C. Croesus ! — no, I 'm no Croesus. My father, — you 've 
seen his portrait, good old fellow ! — he certainly did leave me a 
little matter of twelve thousand pounds a year ; but, after all 

Leech. O, come ! 

Sir C. O, I don't complain of it. 

Leech. I should think not. 

Sir C. O, no ; there are some people who can manage to do 
on less — on credit. 

Leech. I know several. My dear Coldstream, you should try 
change of scene. 

Sir C. I have tried it. What 's the use ? 

Leech. But I'd gallop all over Europe. 

Sir C. I have. There 's nothing in it. 

Leech. Nothing in all Europe ? 

Sir C. Nothing ! O, dear, yes. I remember, at one tune, J 
did, somehow, go about a good deal. 

Leech. You should go to Switzerland. 

Sir C. I have been. Nothing there — people say so much 
about every thing. There certainly were a few glaciers, some 
monks, and large dogs, and thick ankles, and bad wine, and 
Mont Blanc ; yes, and there was ice on the top, too ; but I prefer 
the ice at Gunter's — less trouble, and more in it. 

Leech. Then, if Switzerland wouldn't do, Pd try Italy. 

Sir C. My dear Leech, I've tried it over and over again — 
and what then ? 

Leech. Did not Rome inspire you ? 

Sir C. O, believe me, Tom, a most horrible hole. People 
talk so much about these things ! There 's the Coliseum, now 
— round, very round, — a goodish ruin enough; but I was dis- 
appointed with it. Capitol — tolerably high; and St. Peter's — 
marble, and mosaics, and fountains — dome certainly not badlv 
scooped ; but there was nothing in it. 



NOTHING IN IT. 295 

Leech. Come, Coldstream, you must admit we have nothing 
like St. Peter's in London. 

Sir C. No, because we don't want it ; but if we wanted such 
a thing, of course we should have it. A dozen gentlemen meet, 
pass resolutions, institute, and in twelve months it would be run 
up ; nay, if that were all, we'd buy St. Peter's itself, and have it 
sent over. 

Leech. Ha, ha! well said — you're quite right. What say 
you to beautiful Naples ? 

Sir C. Not bad — excellent watermelons, ana goodish opera. 
They took me up Vesuvius — a horrid bore ! It smoked a good 
deal, certainly, but altogether a wretched mountain — saw the 
crater — looked down, but there was nothing m it 

Leech. But the bay ? 

Sir C. Inferior to Dublin, 

Leech. The Campagna ? 

Sir C. A swamp. 

Leech. Greece ? 

Sir C. A morass. 

Leech. Athens ? 

Sir C. A bad Edinburgh, 

Leech. Egypt ? 

Sir C. A desert. 

Leech. The pyramids ? 

Sir C. Humbugs ! — nothing in any of them. You bore me. 
Is it possible that you can not invent something that would make 
my blood boil in my veins, my hair stand on end, my heart beat, 
my pulse rise ; that would produce an excitement, an emotion, a 
sensation, a palpitation ? But no ! 

Leech. I've an idea ! 

Sir C. You? What is it? 

Leech. Marry ! 

Sir C. Hum ! — well, not bad. There's novelty about the 
notion ; it never did strike me to — O, but no : I should be bored 
with the exertion of choosing. If a wife, now, could be had like 
a dinner — for ordering ! 

Leech. She can, by you. Take the first woman that comes : 
on my life, she'll not refuse twelve thousand pounds a year. 

Sir C. Come, I don't dislike the project ; I almost feel some- 
thing like a sensation coming. I haven't felt so excited for some 
time ; it's & novel enjoyment — a surprise. I '11 try it. 



296 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



The Chameleon, — Mebbick. 

Oft has it been my lot to mark 
A proud, conceited, talking spark, 
Returning from his finished tour, 
Grown ten times perter than before : 
Whatever word you chance to drop, 
The traveled fool your mouth will stop : — 
" Sir, if my judgment you'll allow — 
I've seen — and sure I ought to know ; " 
So begs you'd pay a due submission, 
And acquiesce in his decision. 

Two travelers of such a cast, 
As o'er Arabia's wilds they passed, 
And on their way, in friendly chat, 
Now talked of this, and then of that, 
Discoursed awhile, 'mongst other matter, 
Of the chameleon's form and nature. 
" A stranger animal," cries one, 
" Sure never lived beneath the sun ; 
A lizard's body, lean and long, 
A fish's head, a serpent's tongue, 
Its tooth with triple claw disjoined ; 
And what a length of tail behind ! 
How slow its pace ! and then its hue — 
Who ever saw so fine a blue ? " 

" Hold there ! " the other quick replies — 
" 'Tis green ; I saw it with these eyes, 
As late with open mouth it lay, 
And warmed it in the sunny ray ; 
Stretched at its ease, the beast I viewed, 
And saw it eat the air for food." 

" I've seen it, sir, as well as you, 
And must again affirm it blue ; 
At leisure I the beast surveyed, 
Extended in the cooling shade." 

44 'Tis green ! 'tis green, sir, I assure ye ! '* 

44 Green ? " cries the other, in a fury : 

44 Why, sir, d'ye think I've lost my eyes g w 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 291 

64 'Twere no great loss," the friend replies ; 
" For if they always use you thus, 
You'll find them but of little use." 

So high, at last, the contest rose, 
From words they almost came to blows ; 
When luckily came by a third ; 
To him the question they referred, 
And begged he'd tell them, if he knew, 
Whether the thing was green or blue. 

" Sirs," said the umpire, u cease your pother 
The creature's neither one nor t'other. 
I caught the animal last night, 
And viewed it o'er by candle light ; 
I marked it well — 'twas black as jet : 
You stare — but, sirs, I've got it yet, 
And can produce it." — " Pray, sir, do ; 
I'll lay my life the thing is blue." 
" And I'll be sworn, that when you've seen 
The reptile, you'll pronounce him green." — 
" Well, then, at once to end the doubt," 
Replies the man, " I'll turn him out ; 
And when before your eyes I've set him, 
If you don't find him black, I'll eat him." 
He said — then full before their sight 
Produced the beast ; and, lo ! 'twas white ! 

Both stared ; the man looked wondrous wise. 
" My children," the chameleon cries, — 
Then first the creature found a tongue, — 
" You all are right, and all are wrong. 
When next you talk of what you view, 
Think others see as well as you, 
Nor wonder if you find that none 
Prefers your eyesight to his own." 



Knickerbocker's New England Farmer,— w. Irving. 

Th2 first thought of a Yankee farmer, on coming to the years 
of manhood, is to settle himself in the world — which means 
nothing more than to begin his rambles. To this end, he takes 






298 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

to himself for a wife some buxom country heiress, passing rich 
in red ribbons, glass beads, and mock tortoise-shell combs, with 
a white gown and morocco shoes for Sunday, and deeply skilled 
in the mystery of making apple sweetmeats, long sauce, and 
pumpkin pie. Having thus provided himself, like a pedler, with 
a heavy knapsack, wherewith to regale his shoulders through the 
journey of life, he literally sets out on his peregrinations. 

His whole family, household furniture, and farming utensils, 
are hoisted into a covered cart ; his own and wife's wardrobe 
packed up in a firkin — which done, he shoulders his axe, takes 
staff in his hand, whistles " Yankee Doodle," and trudges off to 
the woods, as confident of the protection of Providence, and re- 
lying as cheerfully on his own resources, as ever did a patriarch 
of yore, when he journeyed into a strange country of the Gen- 
tiles. Having buried himself in the wilderness, he builds himself 
a log hut, clears away a cornfield and potato patch, and, Provi- 
dence smiling upon his labors, he is soon surrounded by a snug 
farm, and some half a score of flaxen-headed urchins, who, by 
their size, seem to have sprung all at once out of the earth, like 
a crop of toadstools. 

But it is not the nature of this most indefatigable of speculators 
to rest contented with any state of sublunary enjoyment : im« 
provement is his darling passion ; and having thus improved his 
lands, the next state is to provide a mansion worthy the residence 
of a landholder. A huge palace of pine boards immediately 
springs up in the midst of the wilderness, large enough for a 
parish church, and furnished with windows of all dimensions ; 
but so rickety and flimsy withal, that every blast gives it a fit of 
the ague. By the time the outside of this mighty air castle is 
completed, eithar the funds or the zeal of our adventurer are 
exhausted, so that he barely manages to half finish one room 
within, where the whole family burrow together, while the rest 
of the house is devoted to the curing of pumpkins, or storing of 
carrots and potatoes, and is decorated with fanciful festoons of 
dried apples and peaches. 

The outside, remaining unpainted, grows venerably black with 
time ; the family wardrobe is laid under contribution for old hats, 
petticoats, and breeches, to stuff into the broken windows ; while 
the four winds of heaven keep up a whistling and howling about 
the aerial palace, and play as many unruly gambols as they ditf 
of yore in the cave of iEolus. The humble log hut, which 
whilom nestled this improving family snugly within its narrow 
but comfortable walls, stands hard by — ignominious contrast ! 
— degraded into a cow house or pig sty ; and the whole scene 



SUSPENSION OF RELATIONS WITH AUSTRIA. 299 

reminds one forcibly of a fable, which 1 am surprised has never 
been recorded, of an aspiring snail, who abandoned his humble 
habitation, which he had long filled with great respectability, to 
crawl into the empty shell of a lobster, where he could, no doubt 
have resided with great style and splendor, the envy and hate of 
all the painstaking snails in his neighborhood, had he not acci- 
dentally perished with cold in one corner of his stupendous man- 
sion. 

Being thus completely settled, and, to use his own words, " to 
rights," one would imagiue that he would begin to enjoy the 
comforts of his situation, to read newspapers, to talk politics, neg- 
lect his own business, and attend to the affairs of the nation, like 
a useful or patriotic citizen ; but now it is that his v/ayward dis- 
position again begins to operate. He soon grows tired of a spot 
where there is no longer any room for improvement, sells his 
farm, (his air castle,) petticoat windows and all, reloads his cart, 
shoulders his axe, puts himself at the head of his family, and 
wanders away in search of new lands, again to fell trees, again 
to clear cornfields, again to build a shingle palace, and again to 
sell off and wander. 



The Suspension of Diplomatic Relations with 
Austria.— M-. t. htjntek. 

Mr. President, I know that I shall be accused of a want of 
sympathy for the Hungarians, whose case excites so much atten- 
tion here. So far as I am personally concerned, I care nothing 
for such accusations, for I have a witness within me which pro- 
nounces them false. But, sir, I should be unwilling to inflict a 
new pang upon the unfortunate Hungarian, by doing any thing 
to give countenance to the idea that there was any man or class 
of men here who did not respect and sympathize with him in his 
misfortunes. I was no uninterested observer of his struggle — 
no unmoved witness of its final catastrophe. If my good wishes 
could have availed him, he had them all. I have studied their 
history with interest, and learned to admire and respect their na- 
tional character. There is a wild mixture of Oriental fervor and 
western chivalry about them, which has always made them objects 
of rather a romantic interest. History, that groat record of hu- 
man affairs, is full of startling contrasts and striking vicissitudes 
and the chapter of that great book which belongs to Hungary 
and her people is nearly as eventful as any. 

When I first heard, sir, that the Hungarian patriots had been 



300 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

forced to take refuge with the Turk, and seek at his hands the 
chanty of an asylum which Christendom refused them, I could 
but recall the day when that country was the bulwark of Chris- 
tendom against the Infidel, and Hunniades made good its title to 
that debatable land between the Crescent and the Cross. When 
I saw who the oppressor was, whose foot was upon the neck of 
bleeding Hungary, I could but recur to the time when a noble 
ancestress of his, who to the loveliness of woman added the soul 
of a Csesar, threw herself upon those people for succor and pro- 
tection. The scene arose before me, as it appears on the pic- 
tured page of Macaulay, in which she is represented upon horse- 
back, weak from recent suffering, yet strong in will, flushed under 
the weight of St. Stephen's iron crown, and after a fashion of 
her race, which would have been deemed extravagant by any 
but an Oriental imagination, waving the sword of state to the four 
quarters of the heavens, and bidding defiance to the earth. 

But hard as has been the lesson taught the Hungarian in his 
recent struggles, it would do no good for foreign powers to in- 
terpose in his favor, and give him armed assistance ; still less 
would it be of any avail to offer him such a resolution of sympa- 
thy as this. There is not, sir, on the page of history, an instance 
of a nation which has maintained its liberty by foreign aid ; for 
the moment the protecting hand is withdrawn, it must fall, unless 
it has some internal resources — some means within itself of 
maintaining its independence, and for self-defense. I have said, 
sir, that this resolution of sympathy will do the Hungarian cause 
no good. But is that enough to say ? Is there no danger that 
it may do that brave but unfortunate people some harm ? It has 
been said, by wise and observing men, that the final catastrophe 
of Poland was probably hastened by imprudent speeches made 
in the British House of Commons and the French Chamber of 
Deputies. It is said that those imprudent but sympathizing 
speeches awakened false hopes in Poland, and led to unwise 
movements there. 

Is there no danger that such a course of action as is proposed 
here might give rise to unfounded hopes in Hungary, or increase, 
perhaps, their sufferings by irritating those who govern them ? 
But, sir, be that as it may with regard to Hungary, I am not pre- 
pared to take this step from considerations of what is due to my 
own country. I give Hungary my best wishes, my earnest sym- 
pathy ; but I prefer my own country to any other, and I can not 
sacrifice its interests for those of another. 1 was sent here to 
le^" slate, not for foreign nations, but my own. I will not abandon 
my own duties in the attempt to discharge those of another. It 



THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE. SO 

would doubtless be pleasing to any generous mind to indulge the 
demands of sympathy ; yet, sir, truth and justice are of higher 
obligation, and ought to be of higher consideration still. Mr. 
President, I can not vote for this resolution. I owe it not only to 
my own country, but to the rights of man, of which so much is 
said, to preserve the wise and long-established policy of the for- 
mer, and to stand by the principle of non-intervention as a high 
moral defense and security for the other. 



The Missionary Enterprise. 

The soul goes out with tears. Sublimity may fill the eye with 
fire, thrill through the frame, and give new intensity to the con- 
sciousness of existence ; tenderness carries a man from himself 
and gives up his poured-out affections into the bosom of another. 
The one enlarges ; the other diffuses and distributes through the 
wide range of humanity its own forgotten being. The one may 
be excited by the voice of the thunder speaking solemnly to the 
dark clouds, by the beetling brow of the mountain, by the sound 
of many waters ; the other claims no affinities with inanimate 
bulk or brutal force — its gushing affections flow only at the 
touch of the soul, or when the Spirit of God breathes upon the 
heart, disposing it to immense goodness and the overflowing of 
benevolence. 

Just before the missionary enterprise commenced, the earth 
presented one of its darkest historical pictures. War — war — 
with brazen throat bellowed from continent to continent, and 
howled over every sea. The truce was asked only to renew the 
stores of national venom, and the preparations for mtional exter- 
mination. The remote shores of this western world were stained 
with fratricidal blood, and shaded with Gallic and British stan- 
dards. Side by side, quiet at last in death, on the gory fields 
of the American revolution, lay the soldier of England, the sol- 
dier of France, of Hesse, of Prussia, of Poland ; and yet the 
American struggle was only as a drop before a mighty cataract 
of waters, precipitated by whirlwinds from the rent clouds to the 
earth, when compared with the gigantic march from the Champ 
li Mars to the pyramids of the Nile, and from the Eternal City 
to the embers of Moscow, hurling ancient dynasties to the howling 
Adnds, and forming bubble kingdoms of imposing, though tran- 
sient magnificence, where the beast of the iron foot had trodden 
down the concentrations of the feudal ages. 



302 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

The world was full of widows and orphans. There was no 
comforter. Infidelity would not stand by its followers, either in 
life or death. None but the messengers of the Most High could 
impart consolation. They came ; angels, having the everlasting 
gospel to preach, brushed away the sulphur clouds of battle, 
and taught that the nations should love each other, and learn war 
no more. As far as their silver trumpets have sounded, and the 
ravishing music of their song been heard by the kingdoms of the 
earth, so far has sweet peace, to a very great extent, succeeded, 
and the milk of human kindness has been poured out to the sor- 
rowful and afflicted. 






The Missionary Spirit. 

A ship was seen bearing up against the obstinate winds of the 
great Indian Ocean. It moved without proclamation, or shout, 
or defiance — bowing like a reed before the monsoon, and glan- 
cing through the permitting waves like a peaceful swan. There 
were on board that ship two hearts united by the tenderest love 
— he, the missionary and minister of the cross — she, the lovely 
vine, clinging to the oak for human support, while she lifts u\ 
her rich clusters to heaven. One in the Christian faith — one ir 
the glorious purpose of preaching the gospel to the heathen — 
one in the sacred union of souls — in the mingling of pure aflfec 
tions. Happy pair ! how shall the heavens glow with eterna 
beauty over your heads, to shelter you from the scorchings of 
India's fierce-haired sun — and how shall the balmy winds breath* 
health over the waste, that these lovely pioneers of Americai 
benevolence to heathen India may long breathe the vital air, an» 
go on together to life's far distant verge, loving the miserable 
more and more, as their own love toward each other gains new 
strength at every successive stage of their Christ-like career ! 

But why the tumult of baffling winds ? The coast of India 
gained and lost, and gained and lost again, is like the tantalizing 
stream, that, fabulous, flies away from the thirsty lip. The ves- 
sel, like a sea bird on ruffled wing, scours along under the angry 
brow of the tempest. Why does gloom gather on the good 
man's brow ? Why sits he pale and disconsolate, disturbed and 
agonizing, by the bedside of his companion, all the livelong 
night, and why watch out the day ? Shall she die — away from 
the land of her fathers — away from every tender tie, save her 
husband and her God — even before the great work for which she 



AGAINST FOREIGN INFLUENCE. 303 

rived, for which she had renounced country and friends, had 
been commenced ? 

Prepare thyself for bitterness, thou pale watcher ; for thou art 
all lonely and sorrowful, by the dying bed of that devoted being, 
whose heart, though breaking up in death, still clings to thee. 
Thou art the only witness of these last looks, which reveal 
thoughts of impassioned fervor — far-wandering ones, that travel 
life over in a twinkling of time, recalling every thought, every 
endearing word. She steps alone into eternity, pointing with her 
farewell gesture to idolatrous India. In the spicy isle of the far- 
off Indian Ocean, a column of marble bears this plaintive tale, 
and bears the name of Harriet Newel 1 . 

A traveler on his horse was toiling beneath the sun of Georgia. 
He had overpassed the sands. The broken hills, the forests, the 
rude wigwam, the dark scowls of Indian suspicion rose on his 
view, like the fantasms of a hideous dream. He meekly spoke 
to those who had rarely known the white man, save in battle or 
treachery ; he spoke to them tenderly of Jesus ; he told them how 
his Savior and their Savior had died for them, and how, like 
his Savior, he was willing to lay down his life for them if they 
would only love his Lord. Surprised and overpowered to tears 
by such language from a white man, the unbending sternness of 
the savage character began to soften into the mellowness and 
glow of Christian love. This traveler loved these benighted In- 
dians unto death. He laid himself down on their blanket, and 
they saw, with broken and adcring hearts, how a good man, a 
lamented missionary, could die. 



Against Foreign Influence. — Millahd ^illmoiwb. 

[Extract of a private letter written by the ex-president, from the shades 
of his retirement in Buffalo, N. Y., 

I confess that it seems to me — with all due respect to others 
— that, as a general rule, our country should be governed by 
American born citizens. Let us give to the oppressed of every 
country an asylum and a home in our happy land ; give to all 
the benefits of equal laws and equal protection ; but let us at the 
same time cherish as the apple of our eye the great principles of 
constitutional liberty, which few, who have not had the good for- 
tune to be reared in a free country, know how to appreciate, kiv3 
jtill less how to prsserve. 



.304 KOSS'S SPEAKER. 

Washington, in that inestimable legacy which he left to his 
country, — his Farewell Address,* — has wisely warned us to be- 
ware of foreign influence as the most baneful foe of a republican 
government. He saw it, to be sure, in a different light from ,hat 
in which it now presents itself; but he knew that it would ap- 
proach us in all forms, and hence he cautioned us against the 
insidious wiles of its influence. ' Therefore, as well for our own 
sakes, to whom this valuable inheritance of self-government hais 
been left by our forefathers, as for the sake of the unborn millions 
who are to inherit this land, — foreign and native, — let us take 
warning of the Father of his Country, and do what we can, justly, 
to preserve our institutions from corruption, and our country from 
dishonor ; but let this be done by the people themselves, in their 
sovereign capacity, by making a proper discrimination in the 
selection of officers, and not by depriving any individual — native 
or foreign born — of any constitutional or legal right to which he 
is now entitled. 

These are my sentiments, in brief ; and although I have some- 
tirr.es almost despaired of my country, when I have witnessed 
the rapid strides of corruption, yet I think I perceive a gleam of 
hope in the future, and I now feel confident, that when the great 
mass of intelligence in this enlightened country is once fully 
aroused, and the danger manifested, it will fearlessly apply the 
remedy, and bring back the government to the pure days of 
Washington's administration. Finally, let us adopt the old Ro- 
man motto, " Never despair of the republic." Let us do our 
duty, and trust, for the result, in that Providence which has 
so signally watched over and preserved us. 



Against Sectional Agitation. 

[Closing portion of President Pierce's Message, delivered to Congress, 

It is necessary to speak plainly of projects, the offspring of 
that sectional agitation now prevailing in some of the states, 
which are as impracticable as they are unconstitutional, and 
which, if they are persevered in, must and will end calamitously. 
It is either disunion and civil war, or it is mere angry, idle, aim- 
less disturbance of public peace and tranquillity. Disunion for 
T 'ho,t ? If the passionate rage of fanaticism and partisan spirit 

* Found at the close of this book. 



ELOQUENCE AND LOGIC. 305 

did not force the fact upon our attention, it would be difficult to 
believe that any considerable portion of the people of this en 
lightened country could have so surrendered themselves to a 
fanatical devotion to the supposed interests of the relatively few 
Africans in the United States, as totally to abandon and disre- 
gard the interests of the twenty-five millions of Americans, to 
trample under foot the injunctions of moral and constitutional 
obligation, and to engage in plans of vindictive hostility against 
those who are associated with them in the enjoyment of the com- 
mon heritage of our national institutions. 

Nor is it hostility against their fellow-citizens of one section of 
the Union alone. The interests, the honor, the duty, the peace, 
and the prosperity of the people of all sections are equally in- 
volved and imperiled in this question. And are patriotic men 
in any part of the Union prepared, on such an issue, thus madly 
to invite all the consequences of the forfeiture of their constitu- 
tional engagements ? It is impossible. The storm of frenzy and 
faction must inevitably dash itself in vain against the unshaken 
rock of the constitution. I shall never doubt it. I know that the 
Union is stronger a thousand times than all the wild and chimer- 
ical schemes of social change, which are generated, one after an- 
other, in the unstable minds of visionary sophists and interested 
agitators. I rely confidently on the patriotism of the people, on 
the dignity and self-respect of the states, on the wisdom of Con- 
gress, and above all, on the continued gracious favor of Almighty 
God, to maintain, against all enemies, whether at home or abroad, 
the sanctity of the constitution and the integrity of the Union. 



Eloquence and Logic. — William c. Pkbston. 

Our popular institutions demand a talent for speaking, and 
create a taste for it. Liberty and eloquence are united, ; n all 
ages. Where the sovereign power is found in the public mind 
mid the public heart, eloquence is the obvious approach to it. 
Power and honor, and all that can attract ardent and aspiring 
natures, attend it. The noblest instinct is to propagate the 
spirit, " to make our mind the mind of other men," and wield the 
scepter in the realms of passion. In the art of speaking, as in 
all other arts, a just combination of those qualities necessary to 
the end proposed is the true rule of taste. Excess is always 
wrong. Too much ornament is an evil — too little also. The one 
may impede the progress of the argument, or divert attention 
20 



306 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

from it, by the introduction of extraneous matter ; ihe other may 
exhauot attention, or weary by monotony. Elegance is in a just 
medium. The safer side to err on is that of abundance — as 
profusion is better than poverty ; as it is better to be detained 
by the beauties of a landscape than by the weariness of the 
desert. 

It is commonly, but mistakenly, supposed that the enforcing of 
truth is most successfully effected by a cold and formal logic ; 
but the subtleties of dialectics, and the forms of logic, may play 
as fantastic tricks with truth as the most potent magic of fancy. 
The attempt to apply mathematical precision to moral truths is 
always a failure, and generally a dangerous one. If man, and 
especially masses of men, were purely intellectual, then cold 
reason would alone be influential to convince ; but our nature is 
most complex, and many of the great truths which it most con- 
cerns us to know are taught us by our instincts, our sentiments, 
our impulses, and our passions. Even in regard to the highest 
and holiest of all truth, to know which concerns us here and 
hereafter, we are not permitted to approach its investigation in 
the confidence of proud and erring reason, but are taught to be- 
come as little children before we are worthy to receive it. It is 
to this complex nature that the speaker addresses himself, and 
the degree of power with which all the elements are evoked is 
the criterion of the orator. His business, to be sure, is to con- 
vince, but more to persuade ; and most of all, to inspire with 
noble and generous passions. It is the cant of criticism in all 
ages, to make a distinction between logic and eloquence, and to 
stigmatize the latter as declamation. Logic ascertains the weight 
of an argument, eloquence gives it momentum. The difference 
is that between the vis inertia of a mass of metal, and the same 
ball hurled from the cannon's mouth. Eloquence is an argument 
alive and in motion — the statue of Pygmalion inspired with 
vitality. 



For Independence.— Ricbakd Hbnry Lbb, 

The time will certainly come when the fated separation be- 
tween the mother country and these colonies must take place, 
whether you will or no ; for so it is decreed by the very nature 
of things — by the progressive increase of our population, the 
fertility of our soil, the extent of our territory, the industry of our 
countrymen, and the immensity of the ocean which separates the 



FOE, INDEPENDENCE. 3C7 

fvvo '.jountries. And, if this be true, — as it is most true,- — who 
does not see that the sooner it takes place, the better ; that i* 
would be the height of folly not to seize the present occasion, 
when British injustice has filled all hearts with indignation, in- 
spired all minds with courage, united all opinions in one, and pu 
arms in every hand ? And how long must we traverse three 
thousand miles of a stormy sea, to solicit of arrogant and insolent 
men either counsels or commands to regulate our domestic af- 
fairs ? From what we have already achieved, it is easy to pre- 
sume what we shall hereafter accomplish. Experience is the 
source of sage counsels, and liberty is the mother of great men. 
Have you not seen the enemy driven from Lexington by citizens 
armed and assembled in one day ? Already their most celebrat- 
ed generals have yielded in Boston to the skill of ours. Already 
their seamen, repulsed from our coasts, wander over the ocean, 
the sport of tempests and the prey of famine. Let us hail the 
favorable omen, and fight, not for the sake of knowing on what 
terms we are to be the slaves of England, but to secure to our- 
selves a free existence, to found a just and independent govern- 
ment. 

Why do we longer delay ? Why still deliberate ? Let this 
most happy day give birth to the American republic. Let her 
arise, not to devastate and conquer, but to reestablish the reign 
of peace and of the laws. The eyes of Europe are fixed upon 
us ; she demands of us a living example of freedom, that may 
contrast, by the felicity of the citizens, with the ever-increasing 
tyranny which desolates her polluted shores. She invites us to 
prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace, and the 
persecuted repose. She entreats us to cultivate a propitious soil, 
where that generous plant which first sprang up and grew in 
England, but is now withered by the poisonous blasts of Scottish 
tyranny, may revive and flourish, sheltering under its salubrious 
and interminable shade all the unfortunate of the human race. 
This is the end presaged by so many omens — by our first victo- 
ries ; by the present ardor and union ; by the flight of Howe 
and the pestilence which broke out among Dunmore's people : 
by the very winds which baffled the enemy's fleets and transports, 
and that terrible tempest which ingulfed seven hundred vessels 
upon the coasts of Newfoundland. If we are not this day want- 
ing in our duty to country, the names of the American legislators 
will be placed, by posterity, at the side of those of Theseus, of 
Lycurgus, of Romulus, of Numa, of the three Williams of Nas- 
sau, and of all those whose memory has been, and will be, for- 
ever dear to virtuous men and good citizens. 



308 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



The Raven. —Edgar A. Pob. 

[In reference tc this beautiful poem, the Critic says, " In our opinion, 
it is the most effective single example of fugitive poetry ever published in 
this country, and unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, 
masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent sustaining of imagi- 
native lift. It is one of those dainties bred in a book which we feed on, 
It will stick to the memory of every body who reads it."] 

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and 
weary, 
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, 
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, 
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. 
" 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, " tapping at my chamber door ; 
Only this, and nothing more." 

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, 

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. 
Eagerly I wished the morrow ; vainly I had tried to borrow 
From my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore, 
For the rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name 
Lenore, 

Nameless here forevermore. 

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain 
Thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before ; 

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, 
" 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door, 
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door ; 
This it is, and nothing more." 

Presently my soul grew stronger ; hesitating then no longer, 

" Sir," said I, " or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore ; 
But, the fact is, I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, 
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, 
That I scarce was sure I heard you." Here I opened wide 
the door ; 

Darkness there, and nothing more. 

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, 
fearing, 
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream 
before ; 



THE RAVEN. 309 

But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token, 
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, 

" Lenore ! " 
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, 
« Lenore ! " 

Merely this, and nothing more. 

Then into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning 
Soon I heard again a tapping, somewhat louder than before. 

11 Surely," said I, " surely that is something at my window lattice ; 
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore ; 
Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore ; 
'Tis the wind, and nothing more ! " 

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, 

In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore ; 
Not the least obeisance made he, not an instant stopped or staia 
he, 
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber 

door, 
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door ; 
Perched, and sat, and nothing more. 

Then this ebon bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, 

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, 
" Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, " art 
sure no craven, 
(ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly 

shore, 
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian 
shore." 

Quoth the raven, " Nevermore." 

Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, 

Though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore ; 
For we can not help agreeing, that no living human being 
Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door. 
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chambei 
door, 

With such name as " Nevermore." 

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only 

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour, 
Nothing further then he uttered, not a feather then he fluttered, 

o 



310 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Till I scarcely more than muttered, " Other friends have flown 
before ; 

On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown be- 
fore." 

Then the bird said, " Nevermore." 

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, 

" Doubtless," said I, " what it utters is its only stock and store, 

Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster 
Followed fast and followed faster, till his song one burden bore. 
Till the dirges of his hope the melancholy burden bore, 
Of ' Nevermore,' of ' Nevermore.' " 

But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, 

Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust, 
and door ; 
Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking 
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore, 
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of 
yore 

Meant in croaking " Nevermore." 

Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing 
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom s 
core ; 
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining 
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp light gloated o'er 
But whose velvet violet lining, with the lamp light gloating o'er, 
She shall press, ah, nevermore ! 

Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen 
censer, 
Swung by angels whose faint footfalls tinkled on the tufted 
floor. 
M Wretch," I cried, " thy God hath lent thee, by these angels he 
hath sent thee, 
Respite, respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore. 
Quaff, 0, quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore." 
Quoth the raven, " Nevermore." 

" Prophet," said I," thing of evil, — prophet still, if bird or devil, — 
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here 
ashore, 
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted, 



STATE INTERPOSITION. 31 1 

On this borne by horror haunted, — tell me truly, [ implore^ 
Is there, is there balm in Gilead ; tell me, tell me, I implore.' 
Quoth the raven, " Nevermore." 

" Prophet," said I, " thing of evil, — prophet still, if bird or devil, — 

By that heaven that bends above us, by that God we both adore t 

Tell this soul, with sorrow laden, if within the distant Aiden 

It shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name Lenore ; 

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name 

Lenore." 

Quoth the raven, " Nevermore." 

" Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend ! " I shrieked, 
upstarting ; 
Get thee back into the tempest and the night's Plutonian shore. 
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath 
spoken ; 
Leave my loneliness unbroken ; quit the bust above my door. 
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from 
off my door." 

Quoth the raven, " Nevermore." 

And the raven, never flitting, still ;s sitting, still is sitting 

On the pallid bust of Pallas jus*, above my chamber door ; 
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming , 
And the lamp light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on 

the floor ; 
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor 
Shall be lifted — nevermore ! 



State Interposition. — J. C. Calhoun. 

We Have, Mr. President, arrived at a remarkable era in oui 
political history. The days of legislative and executive en- 
croachments, of taring and surpluses, of banks and public debt, 
and extravagant expenditure, are past for the present. The 
government stands in a position disentangled from the past, and 
freer to choose its future course than it ever has been since its 
commencement. We are about to take a fresh start. I move 
off under the state rights banner, and go in the direction which I 
have been so long moving. I seize the opportunity thoroughly 
to reform the government ; to bring it back to its original prin- 




312 ROSS'S SPEAKEil. 

cipies ; to retrei/ch and economize, and rigidly enforce account- 
ability. 

I shall oppose, strenuously, all attempts to originate a new 
debt ; to create a national bank ; to reunite the political and 
money powers (more dangerous than church and state) in any 
form or shape ; to prevent the disturbances of the compromise, 
which is gradually removing the last vestiges of the tariff sys- 
tem ; and, mainly, I shall use my best efforts to give an ascend- 
ency to the great conservative principle of state sovereignty over 
the dangerous and despotic doctrine of consolidation. 

I rejoice to think that the executive department of the govern- 
ment is now so reduced in power and means that it can no 
longer rely on its influence and patronage to secure a majority. 
Henceforward it can have no hope of supporting itself but on 
wisdom, moderation, patriotism, and devoted attachment to the 
constitution, which I trust will make it, in its own defense, an 
ally in effecting the reform which I deem indispensable to the 
salvation of the country and its institutions. 

I look, sir, with pride to the wise and noble bearing of the 
little state rights party, of which it is my pride to have been a 
member, throughout the eventful period through which the coun- 
try has passed since 1824. Experience already bears testimony 
to their patriotism, firmness, and sagacity, and history will do it 
justice. In that year, as I have stated, the tariff system tri- 
umphed in the councils of the nation. 

We saw its disastrous political bearings ; foresaw its surpluses 
and the extravagances to which it would lead. We rallied on 
the election of the late president to arrest it through the influence 
of the executive department of the government. In this we 
failed. We then fell back upon the rights and sovereignty of 
the states ; and by the action of a small but gallant state, and 
through the potency of its interposition, we brought the system 
to the ground, sustained, as it was, by the opposition, and the 
administration, and by the whole power and patronage of the 
government. 

The pernicious overflow of the treasury, of which it was the 
parent, could not be arrested at once. The surplus was seized 
on by the executive, and, by its control over the banks, became 
the fruitful source of executive influence and encroachment. 
Without hesitation we joined our old opponents on the tariff 
question, but under our own flag, without merging in their ranks, 
and made a gallant and successful war against the encroach- 
ments of the executive. 

That terminated, we part with our late allies in peace, and 



ADDRESS TO THE TEXlAN ARM1 . 313 

move forward, lag or onward who may, to secure the fruits o f 
our long but successful struggle, under the old republican flag 
of '98, which, though tattered and torn, has never yet been 
lowered, and, with the blessing of God, never shall be with my 
consent. 



Address to the Soldiers on assuming the Command 
of the Texian Army. — m. b. Lamar, 

Soldiers, your country calls you to her defense ! Your 
homes, your firesides, the scenes of former joys and of coming 
glory, all the endearments of domestic happiness, and all the 
hopes of future competence and peace, summon you to the field. 
You are summoned too by the spirits of Fannin and Travis, 
and their gallant companions, whose blood has cemented the 
foundations of our freedom. Their flesh has been food for 
the raven, and their bones have whitened on the prairies unre- 
venged. 

Your pious patriotism has gathered those scattered relics with 
decent sepulchral honors to a soldier's grave ; but their glorified 
spirits, still hovering around the home of their patriotic devotion, 
call upon you to sustain the independence which they have con- 
secrated by martyrdom, and to recompense with merited ven- 
geance the wrongs which they have endured from a perfidious 
and dastard enemy. Shall the call be made in vain ? Shall we 
turn a deaf ear to the voice of our country and the beseeching 
cries of our murdered brethren ? Surely there can be no one 
so insensible to guilt and shame as to look with indifference 
upon the slaughter of his people and the desolation of his 
country. 

If there be so foul a blot upon humanity — if there be one in 
the whole limits of our land who is mean enough, when his 
home is invaded by an insolent foe, to seek safety in dishonor- 
able flight — I would say to him, " Detested recreant ! retire to 
the shades of infamy, and sully no more a beautiful land, whose 
blessings belong to the brave and victorious." Let, then, every 
patriot soldier — every worthy citizen who abhors the name of 
traitor, and contemns the vile epithet of coward — rally to the 
call promptly around the unfurled banner of freedom. Let him 
repair with impatient zeal to the theater of his nation's glory, 
and there snatch, upon the brink of danger, fame for himself 
and safety for his rights. 

The dastard who lingers behind may live to fatten upon the 



3i4 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

fiuits of his recreancy, but when he dies he rots in infamy to 
the joy of all ; whilst the noble hero who makes his breast the 
bulwark of a people's liberty, will find a rich reward for toil and 
valor in the pride of conscious virtue and the smiles of a grate, 
ful nation. If he fall in the holy cause, he will still survive in 
the affections of his comrades, and his name will gather glory 
with the flight of ages. 

" Each, little rill, each mountain river, 
Rolls mingling with his fame forever." 



Enthusiasm, —William Pinoknbt. 

The vanity of human wisdom and the presumption of human 
reason are proverbial. This vanity and this presumption are 
often neither reasonable nor wise. Humanity, too, sometimes 
plays fantastic tricks with power. Time, moreover, is fruitful in 
temptations to convert discretionary power to all sorts of pur- 
poses. 

Time, that withers the strength of man, and " strews around 
him, like autumnal leaves, the ruins of his proudest monuments," 
produces great vicissitudes in modes of thinking and feeling. It 
brings along with it, in its progress, new circumstances ; new 
combinations and modifications of the old ; generating new views, 
motives, and caprices, new fanaticisms of endless variety ; in 
short, new every thing. We ourselves are always changing ; 
and what to-day we have but a small desire to attempt, to-morrow 
becomes the object of our passionate aspirations. 

There is such a thing as enthusiasm, moral, religious, or po- 
litical, or a compound of all three ; and it is wonderful what it 
will attempt, and from what imperceptible beginnings it some- 
times rises into a mighty agent. Rising from some obscure or 
unknown source, it first shows itself a petty rivulet, which 
scarcely murmurs over the pebbles that obstruct its way ; then 
it swells into a fierce torrent, bearing all before it ; and then 
aga'n, like some mountain stream which occasional rains have 
precipitated upon the valley, it sinks once more into a rivulet, 
and finally leaves its channel dry. 

Such a thing has happened. I do not say that it is now hap- 
pening. It would not become me to say so. But if it should 
occur, woe to the unlucky territory that should be struggling to 
make its way into the Union at the moment when the opposing 
inundation was at its hight, and at the same instant this wide 



BE FAITHFUL TO YOUR COUNTRY. 315 

Mediterranean of discretionary powers, which, it seems, is ours, 
should open up all its sluices, and, with a consentaneous rush, 
mingle with the turbid waters of the others ! 



Be faithful to your Country. — e. Everett. 

When the old world afforded no longer any hope, it pleased 
Heaven to open this last refuge of humanity. The attempt has 
begun, and is going on, from foreign corruption, on the broadest 
scale, and under the most benignant auspices ; and it certainly 
rests with us to solve the great problem in human society — to 
settle, and that forever, the momentous question — whether man- 
kind can be trusted with a purely popular system. 

One might almost think, without extravagance, that the de- 
parted wise and good of all places and times are looking down 
from their happy seats to witness what shall now be done by us ; 
that they who lavished their treasures and their blood of old, 
who labored and suffered, who spoke and wrote, who fought and 
perished, in the one great cause of freedom and truth, are now 
hanging, from their orbs on high, over the last solemn experi- 
ment of humanity. 

As I have wandered over the spots once the scene of theii 
labors, and mused among the prostrate columns of their senate 
houses and forums, I have seemed almost to hear a voice from 
the tombs of departed ages — from the sepulchers of the nations 
which died before the sight. They exhort U3, they adjure us, to 
be faithful to our trusts ; they implore us, by the long trials of 
struggling humanity — by the blessed memory of the departed — 
by the dear faith which has been plighted by pure hands to the 
holy cause of truth and man — by the awful secrets of the 
prison houses where the sons of freedom have been immured — 
by the noble heads which have been brought to the block — by 
the wrecks of time — by the eloquent ruins of nations, — they 
conjure us not to quench the light which is rising on the world. 
Greece cries to us by the convulsed lips of her poisoned, dying 
Demosthenes ; and Rome pleads with us in the mute persuasions 
of her mangled Tully. 

Yes, such is the exhortation which calls on us to exert our 
powers, to employ our time, and consecrate our labors, in the 
cause of our native land. When we engage in that solemn 
Study, the history of our race — when we survey the progress 
of man from his cradle in the East to these last limits of lii« 



a 16 KOSS'S SPEAKER. 

wandering — when we behold him forever flying westward 
from civil and religious thralldom, bearing his household gods 
over mountains and seas, seeking rest and finding none, but still 
pursuing the flying bow of promise to the glittering hills which 
it spans in Hesperian climes, we can not but exclaim with Bishop 
Berkeley, the generous prelate of England, who bestowed his 
benefactions, as well as blessings, on our country, — 

«* Westward the star of empire takes its way ; 
The four first acts already past, 
The fifth shall close the drama with the day ? 
Time's noblest offspring is the last." 



Washington's Sword and Franklin's Staff. 

John Quinct Adams. 

[In the United States House of Representatives, on reception of these 

memorials by Congress.] 

The sword of Washington ! The staff of Franklin ! O, sir, 
what associations are linked in adamant with these names ! 
Washington, whose sword was never drawn but in the cause of 
his country, and never sheathed when wielded in his country's 
cause ! Franklin, the philosopher of the thunderbolt, the printing 
press, and the ploughshare ! — What names are these in the scanty 
catalogue of the benefactors of human kind ! Washington and 
Franklin! What other two men, whose lives belong to the 
eighteenth century of Christendom, have left a deeper impression 
of themselves upon the age in which they lived, and upon all 
after time ? 

Washington, the warrior and the legislator ; in war, contending, 
by the wager of battle, for the independence of his country, and 
for the freedom of the human race, — ever manifesting, amidst 
its horrors, by precept and by example, his reverence for the 
laws of peace, and for the tenderest sympathies of humanity ; 
in peace, soothing the ferocious spirit of discord, among his own 
countrymen, into harmony and union, and giving to that very 
sword, now presented to his country, a charm more potent than 
that attributed, in ancient times, to the lyre of Orpheus. 

Franklin, the mechanic of his own fortune; teaching, in 
early youth, under the shackles of indigence, the way to wealth, 
and, in the shade of obscurity, the path to greatness; in the 
maturity of manhood, disarming the thunder of its terrors, the 
lightning of its fatal blast ; and wresting from the tyrant's hand 



THE SWORD OF GENERAI JACKSON. 3(7 

the still more afflictive scepter of oppression ; while descending 
into the vale of years, traversing the Atlantic Ocean, braving, 
in the dead of winter, the battle and the breeze, bearing in his 
hand the charter of independence, which he had contributed to 
form, and tendering, from the self-created nation to the mighti- 
est monarchs of Europe, the olive branch of peace, the mercurial 
wand of commerce, and the amulet of protection and safety to 
the man of peace, on the pathless ocean, from the inexorable 
cruelty and merciless rapacity of war. 

And, finally, in the last stage of life, with fourscore winters 
upon his head, under the torture of an incurable disease, return- 
ing to his native land, closing his days as the chief magistrate of 
his adopted commonwealth, after contributing by his counsels, 
under the presidency of Washington, and recording his name, 
under the sanction of devout prayer, invoked by him to God, to 
that constitution under the authority of which we are here 
assembled, as the representatives of the North American peo- 
ple, to receive, in their name and for them, these venerable 
relics of the wise, the valiant, and the good founders of our great 
confederated republic, these sacred symbols of our golden 
age. May they be deposited among the archives of our gov- 
ernment! And may every American, who shall hereafter be- 
hold them, ejaculate a mingled offering of praise to that Supreme 
Ruler of the universe, by whose tender mercies our Union has 
been hitherto preserved, through all the vicissitudes and revolu- 
tions of this turbulent world, and of prayer for the continuance 
of these blessings, by the dispensations of Providence, to our 
beloved country, from age to age, till time shall be no more ! 



The Sword of General Jackson.— Cabs, 

[The sword being placed on Mr. Cass's desk, he rose, and raising the 
sword, made the following eloquent speech : — ] 

Me. President, I must ask the indulgence of the Senate for 
requesting that its usual business may be suspended to give me 
an opportunity to discharge a trust which has been committed to 
me — a trust I had not the heart to decline, but which I knew I 
had not the power to fulfill as such a mission should be fulfilled. 
T hold in my hand the sword of General Jackson, which he wore 
in all his expeditions, while in the military service of the coun- 
try, and which was his faithful companion in his last and crowning 
victory, when New Orleans was saved from the grasp of a rapa- 

0* 



31S ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

cioras and powerful enemy, and our nation from the disgrace and 
disaster which defeat would have brought in its train. When 
the hand of death was upon him, General Jackson presented this 
sword to his friend, the late General Armstrong, as a testimonial 
of his high appreciation of the services, worth, and courage of 
that most estimable citizen and. distinguished soldier, whose des- 
perate valor on one occasion stayed the tide of Indian success 
and saved the army from destruction. The family of that la- 
mented depositary, now that death has re-leased him from the 
guardianship of this treasure of patriotism, are desirous it should 
be surrendered to the custody of the national legislature, be- 
lieving that to be the proper disposition of a memorial which, in 
all time to come, will be a cherished one for the American peo- 
ple. To carry that purpose into effect, I now offer it in their 
name to Congress. 

Mr. President, this is no doubtful relic, whose identity depends 
upon uncertain tradition, and which owes its interest to an im- 
pulsive imagination. Its authenticity is established beyond con- 
troversy by the papers which accompany it, and it derives its 
value as well from our knowledge of its history as from its as- 
sociation with the great captain whose days of toil and nights of 
trouble it shared and witnessed, and who never drew it from its 
scabbard but to defend the honor and the interests of his country. 
This is neither the time nor the place to portray those great 
traits of character which gave to General Jackson the ascenden- 
cy that no man ever denied who approached him, and that won- 
derful influence with his countrymen which marked almost his 
whole course from his entrance upon a public career till the 
grave closed upon his life and his labors, and left him to that 
equality which the mighty and the lowly must find at last. Still, 
from my personal and official relations with him, and, I trust, I 
may add, from his friendship toward me, of which I had many 
proofs, I can not withhold the acknowledgment of the impression 
which his high qualities made upon me, and which becomes 
more lasting and profound as time is doing its work of separa 
tion from the days of my intercourse with him. 

I have been no careless observer of the men of my time, who, 
controlled by events, or controlling them, have stood prominent 
among them, and will occupy distinguished positions in the annals 
of the age ; and circumstances have attended my opportunities 
of examination to the old world, as well as to the new. But I 
say, and with a deep conviction of its truth, that I never have 
been brought into contact with a man who possessed more 
native sagacity, more profundity of intellect, higher powers of 






UNION LINKED WITH LIBERTY. 31 q 

observation, or greater probity of purpose, more ardctr of 
patriotism, nor more firmness of resolution after he had sur- 
veyed his position and occupied it, than the lamented subject 
of this feeble tribute, not to him, but to truth. And I will add 
that during the process of determination upon important subjects, 
he was sometimes slow, and generally cautious and inquiring, and, 
he has more than once told me, anxious and uneasy, not seldom 
passing the night without sleep ; but he was calm in his mind 
and inflexible in his will, when reflection had given place to 
decision. The prevailing opinion that he was rash and hasty in 
his conclusions is founded upon an erroneous impression of his 
habits of thought and action — upon a want of discrimination 
between his conduct before and after his judgment had pro- 
nounced upon his course. 



Union linked with Liberty.— Andrew Jaokbon, 

{Born 1767, died 1845.) 

Without union our independence and liberty would never 
nave been achieved ; without union they can never be main- 
tained. Divided into twenty-four, or even a smaller number of 
separate communities, we shall see our internal trade burdened 
with numberless restraints and exactions ; communication be- 
tween distant points and sections obstructed or cut off; our sons 
made soldiers, to deluge with blood the fields they now till in 
peace ; the mass of our people borne down and impoverished by 
taxes to support armies and navies ; and military leaders, at the 
head of their victorious legions, becoming our lawgivers and 
judges. The loss of liberty, of all good government, of peace, 
plenty, and happiness, must inevitably follow a dissolution of the 
Union. In supporting it, therefore, we support all that is dear to 
the freeman and the philanthropist. 

The time at which I stand before you is full of interest. The 
eyes of all nations are fixed on our republic. The event of the 
existing crisis will be decisive, in the opinion of mankind, of the 
practicability of our federal system of government. Great is the 
stake placed in our hands ; great is the responsibility which 
must rest upon the people of the United States. Let us realize 
the importance of the attitude in which we stand before the 
world. Let us exercise forbearance and firmness. Let us ex- 
tricate our country from the dangers which surround it, and 
learn wisdom from the lessons they inculcate. Deeply impressed 



320 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

with the truth of these observations, and under the obligation 
of that solemn oath which I am about to take, I shall continue to 
exert all my faculties to maintain the just powers of the consti- 
tution, and to transmit unimpaired to posterity the blessings of 
our federal Union. 

At the same time it will be my aim to inculcate, by my official 
acts, the necessity of exercising, by the general government, 
those powers only that are clearly delegated ; to encourage sim- 
plicity and economy in the expenditures of the government ; to 
raise no more money from the people than may be requisite for 
these objects, and in a manner that will best promote the inter- 
ests of all classes of the community, and of all portions of the 
Union. Constantly bearing in mind that, in entering into society, 
" individuals must give up a share of liberty to preserve the 
rest," it will be my desire so to discharge my duties as to foster 
with our brethren, in all parts of the country, a spirit of liberal 
concession and compromise, and, by reconciling our fellow- 
citizens to those partial sacrifices which they must unavoidably 
make for the preservation of a greater good, to recommend our 
invaluable government and Union to the confidence and affec- 
tions of the American people. Finally, it is my most fervent 
prayer to that Almighty Being before whom I now stand, and 
who has kept us in his hands from the infancy of our republic 
to the present day, that he will so overrule all my intentions ana 
actions, and inspire the hearts of my fellow-citizens, that we 
may be preserved from dangers of all kinds, and continue for- 
ever a united and happy people. 



Scene from Catiline. — Croly. 

The Senate. — Lictors ; the Consul ; Cicero speaking. 

Cic. Our long dispute must close. Take one proof more 
Of this rebellion. — Lucius Catiline 
Has been commanded to attend the Senate. 
He dares not come. I now demand your votes. 
Is he condemned to exile ? 

(Catiline comes in hastily, and flings himself on the bench ; 
all the senators go over to the other side.) 

Cic. (Turning to Catiline.) Here I repeat the charge, to 
gods and men, 
Of treasons manifold — that, but this day. 



SCENE FROM CATILINE. 82 i 

He has received despatches from the rebels ; 
That he has leagued with deputies from Gaul 
To seize the province ; nay, has levied troops, 
And raised his rebel standard ; that but now 
A meeting of conspirators was held 
Under his roof, with mystic rites, and oaths, 
Pledged round the body of a murdered slave. 
To these he has no answer. 

Cat. (Rising calmly.) Conscript fathers : 
1 do not rise to waste the night in words ; 
Let that, plebeian talk ; 'tis not my trade ; 
But here I stand for right — let him show proofs — 
For Roman right ; though none, it seems, dare stand 
To take their share with me. Ay, cluster there, 
Cling to your master ; judges, Romans — slaves! 
His charge is false ; 1 dare him to his proofs. 
You have my answer. Let my actions speak. 

Cic. (Interrupting him.) Deeds shall convince you ! Has 
the traitor done ? 

Cat. But this I will avow, that I have scorned, 
And still do scorn, to hide my sense of wrong ; 
Who brands me on the forehead, breaks my sword, 
Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back, 
Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts 
The gates of honor on me, turning out 
The Roman from his birthright ; and for what ! (Looking round 

him.) 
To fling your offices to every slave ; 
Vipers that creep where man disdains to climb ; 
And having wound their loathsome track to the top 
Of this huge moldering monument of Rome, 
Hang hissing at the nobler man below. 

Cic. This is his answer ! Must I bring more proofs ? 
Fathers, you know there lives not one of us 
But lives in peril of his midnight sword. 
Lists of proscription have been handed round, 
In which your general properties are made 
Your murderer's hire. 

(A cry is heard without — u More prisoners ! " An offi- 
cer enters with letters for Cicero ; who, after glancing 
at them, sends them round the Senate. Catiline u 
strongly perturbed.) 

fathers of Rome ! If man can be convinced 
21 



322 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

By proof as clear as daylight, here it is ! 
Look on these letters ! Here's a deep-laid plot 
To wreck the provinces ; a solemn league, 
Made witn all form and circumstance. The time 
Is desperate — all the slaves are up — Rome shakes ! 
The heavens alone can tell how near our graves 
We stand even here ! — The name of Catiline 
Is foremost in the league. He was their king. 
Tried and convicted traitor ! go from Rome ! 

Cat. {Haughtily rising.) Come, consecrated lictors, from 
your thrones ; ( To the Senate.) 
Fling down your scepters ; take the rod and ax, 
And make the murder as you make the law. 

Cic. (Interrupting him.) Give up the record of his banish- 
ment. ( To an officer.) 

( The officer gives it to the Consul.) 

Cat. (Indignantly.) Banished from Rome ! What's ban- 
ished, but set free 
From daily contact of the things I loathe ? 
" Tried and convicted traitor ! " Who says this ? 
Who'll prove it, at his peril, on my head ? 
Banished — I thank you for it. It breaks my chain ! 
I held some slack allegiance till this hour ; 
But now my sword's my own. Smile on, my lords ! 
I scorn to count what feelings, withered hopes, 
Strong provocations, bitter, burning wrongs, 
I have within my heart's hot cells shut up, 
To leave you in your lazy dignities. 
But here I stand and scoff you ; here I fling 
Hatred and full defiance in your face. 
Your consul's merciful. For this, all thanks. 
He dares not touch a hair of Catiline. 

( The Consul reads : — " Lucius Sergius Catiline, by 
the decree of the Senate, you are declared an enemy 
and alien to the state and banished from the territory 
of the commonwealth. ") 

The Consul. Lictors, drive the traitor from the temple ! 

Cat. (Furious.) " Traitor ! " I go — but I return. This — 
trial ! 
Here I devote y)ur Senate ! I've had wrongs 
To stir a fever in the blood of age, 
Or make the infant's sinews strong as steel. 
This day's the birth of sorrows ! — this hour's work 



WE ARE SEVEN. 823 

Will breed proscriptions : — look to your hearths, my lords ! 

For there, henceforth shall sit, for household gods, 
Shapes hot from Tartarus ! — all shames and crimes ! 
Wan Treachery, with his thirsty dagger drawn ; 
Suspicion, poisoning his brother's cup ; 
Naked Rebellion, with the torch and ax, 
Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones ; 
Till Anarchy comes down on you like night, 
And Massacre seals Rome's eternal grave ! 

( The senators rise in tumult and cry out ,) 

Go, enemy and parricide, from Rome ! 

Cic, Expel him, lictors ! Clear the Senate house ! 

( They surround him,) 
Cat, (Struggling through them.) I go, but not to leap the 
gulf alone. 
I go — but when I come, 'twill be the burst 
Of ocean in the earthquake — rolling back 
In swift and mountainous ruin. Fare you well ! 
You build my funeral pile, but your best blood 
Shall quench its flame. Back, slaves ! (To the lictors.) — I will 
return. 

(He rushes out ; the scene closes.) 



We are Seven. — Womtwiw. 

I met a little cottage girl ; 

She was eight years old, she said ; 
Her hair was thick, with many a curl, 

That clustered round her head. 

She had a rustic, woodland air, 

And she was wildly clad ; 
Her eyes were fair, and very fair ; 

Her beauty made me glad. 

" Sisters and brothers, little maid, 

How many may you be ? " 
" How many ? seven, in all," she said. 

And wondering, looked at me. 



324 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

** And where are they ? I pray you tell.' 
She answered, " Seven are we ; 

And two of us in Conway dwell, 
And two are gone to sea. 

** Two of us in the churchyard lie, 

My sister and my brother ; 
And in the churchyard cottage I 

Dwell near them, with my mother * 

" You say that two at Conway dwell, 

And two are gone to sea, 
Yet ye are seven ; I pray you tell, 

Sweet maid, how this may be ? " 

Then did the little maid reply, 
" Seven boys and girls are we ; 

Two of us in the churchyard lie ; 
Beneath the churchyard tree." 

" You run about, my little maid ; 

Your limbs, they are alive ; 
If two are in the churchyard laid, 

Then ye are only five." 

" Their graves are green ; they may be 

The little maid replied, 
" Twelve steps or more from mother's door, 

And they are side by side. 

" My stockings there I often knit, 

My 'kerchief there I hem ; 
And there upon the ground I sit , 

I sit and sing to them. 

" And often after sunset, sir, 

When it is light and fair, 
I take my little porringer, 

And eat my supper there. 

" The first that died was little Jane 

In bed she moaning lay, 
Till God released her from her pain, 

And then she went away. 



CONSTITUTION OP THE UNITED STATES. 325 

" So in the churchyard she was laid ; 

And all the summer dry, 
Together round her grave we played, 

My brother John and I. 

" And when the ground was white with snow, 

And I could run and slide, 
My brother John was forced to go, 

And he lies by her side." 

" How many are you then," said I, 

" If they two are in heaven ? " 
The little maiden did reply, 

" O master, we are seven." 

" But they are dead ; those two are dead ; 

Their spirits are in heaven ; " 
'Twas throwing words away ; for still 
The little maid would have her will, 

And said, " Nay, we are seven." 



Constitution of the United States. 

Alexander Hamilton. 

After all our doubts, our suspicions, and speculations, on the 
subject of government, we must return, at last, to this important 
truth — that, when we have formed a constitution upon free 
principles, when we have given a proper balance to the different 
branches of administration, and fixed representation upon pure 
and equal principles, we may, with safety, furnish it with all the 
powers necessary to answer, in the most ample manner, the pur- 
poses of government. The great desiderata are a free repre- 
sentation and mutual checks. When these are obtained, all our 
apprehensions of the extent of powers are unjust and imaginary. 
What, then, is the structure of this constitution ? One branch 
of the legislature is to be elected by the people — by the same 
people who choose your state representatives. Its members 
are to hold their office two years, and then return to their con- 
stituents. Here, sir, the people govern. Here they act by their 
•mmediate representatives. You have also a Senate, constituted 
by your state legislatures, — by men in whom you place the 
Highest confidence, — and forming another representative brancn. 



326 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Then, again, you have an executive magistrate, created by a 
form of election which merits universal admiration. 

In the form of this government, and in the mode of legisla- 
tion, you find all the checks which the greatest politicians and 
the best writers have ever conceived. What more can reasonable 
men desire ? Is there any one branch in which the whole 
legislative and executive powers are lodged ? No ! The legis- 
lative authority is lodged in three distinct branches, properly 
balanced ; the executive authority is divided between two 
branches ; and the judicial is still reserved for an independent 
body, who hold their office during good behavior. This organ- 
ization is so complex, so skillfully contrived, that it is next to 
impossible that an impolitic or wicked measure should pass the 
great scrutiny with success. Now, what do gentlemen mean by 
coming forward and declaiming against this government ? Why 
do they say we ought to limit its powers, to disable it, and to 
destroy its capacity of blessing the people ? Has philosophy 
suggested, has experience taught, that such a government ought 
not to be trusted with every thing necessary for the good of 
society ? Sir, when you have divided and nicely balanced the 
departments of government ; when you have strongly connected 
the virtue of your rulers with their interests ; when, in short, you 
have rendered your system as perfect as human forms can be,— 
vou must place confidence ; you must give power. 



Extent of Country no Bar to Union 

Edmund Randolph, 
[In the "Virginia convention on the federal constitution, 

Extent of country, in my conception, ought to be no bar to 
the adoption of a good government. No extent on earth seems 
♦o me too great, provided the laws be wisely made and executed. 
The principles of representation and responsibility may pervade 
a large as well as a small territory ; and tyranny is as easily 
introduced into a small as into a large district. Union, Mr. 
Chairman, is the rock of our salvation. Our safety, our political 
happiness, our existence depend on the union of these states. 
Without union, the people of this and the other states will undergo 
the unspeakable calamities which discord, faction, turbulence, 
war, and bloodshed have continually produced in other countries. 
Without union, we throw away all those blessings for which we 
have so earnestly fought. Without union, there is no peace, sir, 
in the land. 



SUBLIME PROSPECTS. 327 

The American spirit ought to be mixed with American pride 
— pride to see the Union magnificently triumph. Let that 
glorious pride which once defied the British thunder reanimate 
you again. Let it not be recorded of Americans, that, after 
having performed the most gallant exploits, after having overcome 
the most astonishing difficulties, and after having gained the 
admiration of the world by their incomparable valor and policy, 
they lost their acquired reputation, lost their national consequence 
and happiness, by their own indiscretion. Let no future historian 
inform posterity that Americans wanted wisdom and virtue to 
concur in any regular, efficient government. Catch the present 
moment. Seize it with avidity. It may be lost, never to be 
regained ; and if the Union be lost now, I fear it will remain so 
forever. 



Sublime Prospects. — ajunsidb, 

Who, that from Alpine hights his laboring eye 

Shoots round the wide horizon, to survey 

Nilus or Ganges rolling his broad tide 

Through mountains, plains, through empires black with shade, 

And continents of sand, will turn his gaze 

To mark the windings of a scanty rill 

That murmurs at his feet ? The high-born soul 

Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing 

Beneath its native quarry. Tired of earth 

And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft ; 

Through fields of air pursues the flying storm ; 

Rides on the volleyed lightning through the heavens ; 

Or, yoked with whirlwinds and the northern blast, 

Sweeps the long track of day. Then high she soars 

The blue profound, and, hovering o'er the sun, 

Beholds him pouring the redundant stream 

Of light ; beholds his unrelenting sway 

Bend the reluctant planets to absolve 

The fated rounds of time. Thence, far effused, 

She darts her swiftness up the long career 

Of devious comets ; through its burning signs 

Exulting circles the perennial wheel 

Of nature, and looks back on all the stars, 

Whose blended light, as with a milky zone 

Invests the orient. Now, amazed, she views 

The empyreal wastes, where happy spirits hold. 



328 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Beyond this concave heaven, their calm abode, 
And fields of radiance, whose unfading light 
Has traveled the profound six thousand years, 
Nor yet arrived in sight of mortal things. 
Even on the barriers of the world, untired, 
She meditates the eternal depth below, 
Till, half recoiling, down the headlong steep 
She plunges, soon o'erwhelmed and swallowed up 
In that immense of being. There her hopes 
Rest at the fated goal ; for, from the birth 
Of mortal man, the sovereign Maker said, 
That not in humble nor in brief delight, 
Not in the fading echoes of renown, 
Power's purple robes, nor pleasure's flowery lap, 
The soul should find enjoyment ; but from these 
Turning, disdainful, to an equal good, 
Through all the ascent of things enlarge her view, 
Till every bound at length should disappear, 
And infinite perfection close the scene. 



France and the United States, — George Washington. 

(Born 1732, died 1799.) 

[Reply, as president of the United States, January 1, 1796, to the 
address of the minister plenipotentiary of the French republic, on his 
presenting the colors of France to the United States.] 

Born, sir, in a land of liberty, — having early learned its 
value, — having engaged in a perilous conflict to defend it, — 
having, in a word, devoted the best years of my life to secure its 
permanent establishment in my own country, — my anxious 
recollections, my sympathetic feelings, and my best wishes are 
irresistibly excited whensoever, in any country, I see an oppressed 
nation unfurl the banners of freedom. But, above all, the events 
of the French revolution have produced the deepest solicitude, 
as well as the highest admiration. To call your nation brave, 
were to pronounce but common praise. Wonderful people ! 
Ages to come will read with astonishment the history of your 
brilliant exploits. I rejoice that the period of your toils and of 
your immense sacrifices is approaching. I rejoice that the inter- 
esting revolutionary movements of so many years have issued in 
the formation of a constitution designed to give permanency to 
the great object for which you have contended. I rejoice that 



THE HERMIT. 329 

liberty, which you have so long embraced with enthusiasm,— 
liberty, of which you have been the invincible defenders, — now 
finds an asylum in the bosom of a regularly organized govern- 
ment ; a government which, being formed to secure the hap- 
piness of the French people, corresponds with the ardent wishes 
of my heart, while it gratifies the pride of every citizen of the 
United States by its resemblance to his own. On these glorious 
events, accept, sir, my sincere congratulations. 

In delivering to you these sentiments, I express not my own 
feelings only, but those of my fellow-citizens, in relation to the 
commencement, the progress, and the issue of the French revo- 
lution ; and they will cordially join with me in purest wishes to 
the Supreme Being that the citizens of our sister republic, our 
magnanimous allies, may soon enjoy in peace that liberty which 
they have purchased at so great a price, and all the happiness 
which liberty can bestow. 

1 receive, sir, with lively sensibility, the symbol of the triumphs 
and of the enfranchisement of your nation, the colors of France, 
which you have now presented to the United States. The trans- 
action will be announced to Congress, and the colors will be 
deposited with those archives of the United States which are at 
once the evidences and the memorials of their freedom and 
independence. May these be perpetual. And may the friend- 
ship of the two republics be commensurate with their existence. 



The Hermit. — Goldsmith. 

" Turn, gentle hermit of the dale, 
And guide my lonely way 

To where yon taper cheers the vale 
With hospitable ray. 

" For here forlorn and lost I tread 
With fainting steps and slow ; 

Where wilds, immeasurably spread, 
Seem lengthening as I go." 

" Forbear, my son," the hermit cries 
" To tempt the dangerous gloom ; 

For yonder faithless phantom flies, 
To lure thee to thy doom. 






ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

44 Here to the houseless child of want 

My door is open still ; 
And though my portion is but scant, 

I give it with good will. 

u Then turn to-night, and freely share 
Whate'er my cell bestows — 

My rushy couch and frugal fare, 
My blessing and repose. 

44 No flocks that range the valley free 

To slaughter I condemn ; 
Taught by the Power that pities me, 

I learn to pity them. 

44 But from the mountain's grassy side 

A guiltless feast I bring ; 
A scrip with herbs and fruits supplied, 

And water from the spring. 

44 Then, pilgrim, turn ; thy cares forego , 
All earth-born cares are wrong. 

Man wants but little here below, 
Nor wants that little long." 



Man alone makes War on his own Species.— scon 

The hunting tribes of air and earth 
Respect the brethren of their birth. 
Nature, who loves the claim of kind, 
Less cruel chase to each assigned. 
The falcon, poised on soaring wing, 
Watches the wild duck by the spring ; 
The slow-hound wakes the fox's lair ; 
The greyhound presses on the hare ; 
The eagle pounces on the lamb ; 
The wolf devours the fleecy dam ; 
Even tiger fell, and sullen bear, 
Their likeness and their lineage spare. 
Man only mars kind nature's plan, 
And turns the fierce pursuit on 



MESSIAH, A SACRED ECLOGUE. 331 

Plying war's desultory trade, 
Incursion, flight, and ambuscade, 
Since Nimrod, Cush's mighty son, 
At first the bloody game begun. 



Messiah, a Sacred Eclogue.— Von. 

No more shall nation against nation rise, 

No ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes ; 

No fields with gleaming steel be covered o'er, 

The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more ; 

But useless lances into scythes shall bend, 

And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end. 

Then palaces shall rise ; the joyful son 

Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun ; 

Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield, 

And the same hand that sowed shall reap the field , 

The swain, in barren deserts, with surprise, 

Sees lilies spring and sudden verdure rise ; 

And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds, to hear 

New falls of water murmuring in his ear. 

On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes, 

The green reed trembles and the bulrush nods. 

Waste, sandy valleys, once perplexed with thorn, 

The spiry fir and shapely box adorn ; 

The leafless shrubs the flowering palms succeed, 

And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed. 

The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead, 

And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead. 

The steer and lion at one crib shall meet, 

And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet. 

The smiling infant in his hand shall take 

Th3 crested basilisk and speckled snake ; 

Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey, 

And with their forky tongue shall innocently play. 

Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise ! 
Exalt thy towery head and lift thy eyes ! 
See, a long race thy spacious courts adorn ■ 
See future sons and daughters, yet unborn. 
In crowding ranks on every side arise, 
Demanding life, impatient for the skies. 



332 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

See barbarous nations at thy gates attend, 

Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend ; 

See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings, 

And heaped with products of Sabsean springs. 

For thee Idume's spicy forests blow, 

And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow. 

See heaven its sparkling portals wide display, 

And break upon thee in a flood of day. 

No more the rising sun shall gild the morn, 

Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn ; 

But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays, 

One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze, 

O'erflow thy courts. The Light himself shall shine 

Revealed, and God's eternal day be thine. 

The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay 

Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away ; 

But fixed his word, his saving power remains ; 

Thy realm forever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns. 



The Soldier's Tear. — T. H. Baiut. 

Upon the hill he turned 

To take a last fond look 
Of the valley, and the village church, 

And the cottage by the brook ; 
He listened to the sounds 

So familiar to his ear, 
And the soldier leant upon his sword 

And wiped away a tear. 

Beside that cottage porch 

A girl was on her knees ; 
She held aloft a snowy scarf, 

Which fluttered in the breeze ; 
She breathed a prayer for him, 

A prayer he could not hear, 
But he paused to bless her, as she knelt, 

And wiped away a tear. 

He turned and left the spot , 

O, do not deem him weak ! 
For dauntless was the soldier's heart, 

Though tears were on his cheek. 



FKEE DISCUSSION. 

Go watch the foremost rank 
In danger's dark career ; 

Be sure the hand most daring there 
Has wiped away a tear. 



The Veteran.— T. H. Baulbt. 

It was a Sabbath morn ; 

The bell had chimed for church, 
And the young and gay were gathering 

Around the rustic porch ; 

There came an aged man, — 

In a soldier's garb was he, — 
And gazing round the group, he cried, 

" Do none remember me ? " 

The veteran forgot 

His friends were changed or gone ; 
The manly forms around him there 

As children he had known. 

He pointed to the spot 

Where his dwelling used to be, 
Then told his name, and smiling said, 

" You now remember me." 

Alas ! none knew him there : 

He pointed to a stone 
On which the name he breathed was traced, 

A name to them unknown ; 

And then the old man wept. 

" I am friendless, now," cried he ; 
u Where I had many friends in youth, 

Not one remembers me." 



Free Discussion. — Webstbb. 

Important as I deem it to discuss, on all proper occasions, 
l\ e policy of the measures at present pursued, it is still more 
important to maintain the right of such discussion in its full and 
just extent. Sentiments lately sprung up, and now growing 
fashionable, make it necessary to be explicit on this point. The 

P 



834 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

more I perceive a disposition to check the freedom of inquiry by 
extravagant and unconstitutional pretences, the firmer shall be 
the tone in which I shall assert, and the freer the manner in 
which I shall exercise it. 

It is the ancient and undoubted prerogative of this people to 
canvass public measures and the merits of public men. It is a 
" homebred right " — a fireside privilege. It hath ever been 
enjoyed in every house, cottage, and cabin in the nation. It is 
not to be drawn into controversy. It is as undoubted as the 
right of breathing the air or walking on the earth. Belonging to 
private life as a right, it belongs to public life as a duty ; and it 
is the last duty which those whose representative I am shall find 
me to abandon. Aiming at all times to be courteous and tem- 
perate in its use, except when the right itself shall be questioned, 
I shall then carry it to its extent. I shall place myself on the 
extreme boundary of my right, and bid defiance to any arm that 
would move me from my ground. 

This high constitutional privilege I shall defend and exercise 
within this house, and without this house, and in all places ; in 
time of peace, and in all times. Living, I shall assert it ; and, 
should I leave no other inheritance to my children, by the bless- 
ing of God I will leave them the inheritance of free principles, 
and the example of a manly, independent, and constitutional de- 
fense of them. 



American Institutions. — Wbbstbk. 

Who is there among us that, should he find himself on any 
spot of the earth where human beings exist, and where the exist- 
ence of other nations is known, would not be proud to say, 1 
am an American ; I am a countryman of Washington ; I am 
a citizen of that republic which, although it has suddenly sprung 
np, yet there are none on the globe who have ears to hear, and 
have not heard of it — who have eyes to see, and have not read 
of it — who know any thing, and yet do not know of its existence 
and its glory ? And, gentlemen, let me now reverse the pic- 
ture. Let me ask, Who is there among us, if he were to be 
found to-morrow in one of the civilized countries of Europe, and 
were there to learn that this goodly form of government had 
been overthrown — that the United States were no longer united 
— who is there whose heart would not sink within him ? Who 
is there who would not cover his face for very shame ? 

At this very moment, gentlemen, our country is a general 



ON GOVERNMENT EXTRAVaXfANCE. 335 

refuge for the distressed and the persecuted of other natio- % 
Whoever is in affliction from political occurrences in his c vn 
country looks here for shelter. Whether he be republican^ fly- 
ing from the oppression of thrones — or whether he be monarch 
or monarchist, flying from thrones that crumble and fall under 
or around him — he feels equal assurance that, if he get foot- 
hold on our soil, his person is safe, and his rights will be r*» 
•spected. 

We have tried these popular institutions in times of great ex- 
citement and commotion, and they have stood substantially firm 
and steady while the fountains of the great political deep have 
been elsewhere broken up ; while thrones, resting on ages of 
prescription, have tottered and fallen ; and while, in other coun- 
tries, the earthquake of unrestrained popular commotion has 
swallowed up all law, and all liberty, and all right together. 
Our government has been tried in peace, and it has been tried 
in war, and has proved itself fit for both. It has been assailed 
from without, and it has successfully resisted the shock ; it has 
been disturbed within, and it has effectually quieted the disturb- 
ance. It can stand trial ; it can stand assault ; it can stand 
adversity ; it can stand every thing but the marrmg of its own 
beauty and the weakening of its own strength. It can stand 
every thing but the effects of our own rashness and our own 
'oily. It can stand every thing but disorganization, disunion, 
and nullification. 



On Government Extravagance 

John J. Crittenden, 

The bill under consideration is intended to authorize the 
treasury department to issue ten millions of treasury notes, to be 
applied to the discharge of the expenses of government. Habits 
of extravagance, it seems, are hard to change. They constitute 
a disease ; ay, sir, a very dangerous one. That of the present 
administration came to a crisis about eight months ago, and it 
cost the patient ten millions of treasury notes to get round the 
corner. And now it is as bad as ever. Another crisis has 
come, and the doctors ask for ten millions more. The disease 
is desperate. Money or death. They say, if the bill is rejected 
government must " stop." What must stop ? The laws ? The 
judicial tribunals ? The legislative bodies ? The institutions of 
the country ? No, no, sir ; all these will remain and go on. 
What stops, then ? Its own extravagance ; that must stop, and 



336 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

" there's the rub ! " Besides, sir, 1 must really be permitted to 
say, that if to keep this administration on its feet is to cost ten 
millions of extraordinary supply every six or eight months, why, 
Mr. President, the sooner its fate is recorded in the bills of mor- 
tality the better. 

Let me know how this money is to be applied. I never will 
vote a dollar on the mere cry of " exigency ! " — " crisis ! " T 
will be behind no man in meeting the real necessities of my 
country, but I will not b.indly or heedlessly vote away the 
money of the people, or involve them in debt. If the govern- 
ment wants money, let it borrow it. If extravagance or necessity 
shall bring a national debt upon us, let it come openly, and not 
steal upon us in the disguise of treasury notes. " O, but it is no 
debt ! " say gentlemen ; " it is only issuing a few notes to meet 
a crisis." Well, sir, whether it be a national debt I will not say. 
This I know : it will be followed, whatever it is, with the serious 
and substantial consequence, that the people of the United States 
will have to pay it — eveiy cent of it — and with interest. Sir, 
I desire to see this experimenting administration forced to make 
some experiments in economy. It is almost the only sort of 
experiment to which it seems averse. Its cry is still for money, 
money, money ! But, for one, I say to it, " Take physic, Pomp ! " 
Lay aside your extravagance. Too much money has been your 
bane ; and I do not feel myself required, by any duty, to grant 
you more at present. If I did, it would not be in the form pro- 
Dosed by the bill. 



The Tyrant Gesler and William Tell. — Knowlm. 

Gesler. Why speak'st thou not ? 

William Tell. For wonder. 

Ges. Wonder ? 

Tell. Yes, that thou shouldst seem a man. 

Ges. What should I seem ? 

Tell. A monster ! 

Ges. Ha, beware ! — think on thy chains. 

Tell. Though they were doubled, and did weigh me djwn 
Prostrate to earth, methinks I could rise up 
Erect, with nothing but the honest pride 
Of telling thee, usurper, to the teeth, 
Thou art a monster. Think upon my chains ? 
Show me the link of them, which, could it speaK, 
Would give its evidence aga nst my word. 



GESLER AND WILLIAM TELL. 3JTI 

Think on my chains ! Think on my chain* ! 
How came they on me ? 

Ges. Darest thou question me ? 

Tell. Darest thou not answer ? 

Ges. Do I hear ? 

Tell Thou dost. 

j-es. Beware my vengeance ! 

Tell. Can it more than kill ? 

Ges. Enough — it can do that 

Tell. No, not enough. 
It 3an not take away the grace of life, 
Its comeliness of look that virtue gives, 
Its port erect with consciousness of truth, 
Its rich attire of honorable deeds, 
Its fair report, that's rife on good men's tongues ; 
It can not lay its hands on these, no more 
Than it can pluck his brightness from the ran, 
Or, with polluted finger, tarnish it. 

Ges. But it can make thee writhe. 

Tell. It may. 

Ges. And groan. 

Tell. It may ; and I may cry, 
Go on, though it should make me groan again. 

Ges. Whence comest thou ? 

Tell. From the mountains. Wouldst thou learn 
What news from them ? 

Ges. Canst tell me any ? 

Tell. Ay ; they watch no more the avalanche. 

Ges. Why so ? 

Tell. Because they look for thee. The hurricane 
Comes unawares upon them ; from its bed 
The torrent breaks, and finds them in its track. 

Ges. What do they then ? 

Tell. Thank Heaven it is not thou ! 
Thou hast perverted nature in them. The earth 
Presents her fruits to them, and is not thanked ; 
The harvest sun is constant, and they scarce 
Return his smile ; their flocks and herds increase, 
And they look on as men who count a loss. 
They hear of thriving children born to them, 
And never shake the teller by the hand ; 
While those they have they see grow up and flourish, 
And think as little of caressing them 
As they were things a deadly plague had smit, 
32 



338 KCSS'S SPEAKER. 

There's not a bless**ig Heaven vouchsafes them, but 
The thought of thee doth wither to a curse, 
As something they must lose, and richer were 
To lack. 

Ges. That's right ! Pd have them like their hills, 
That never smile, though wanton summer tempt 
Them e'er so much. 

Tell. But they do sometimes smile. 

Ges. Ay ! — when is that ? 

Tell. When they do talk of vengeance. 

Ges. Vengeance ? Dare 
They talk of that ? 

Tell. Ay, and expect it, too. 

Ges. From whence ? 

Tell From Heaven. 

Ges. From Heaven ? 

Tell. And the true hearts 
Are lifted up to it, on every hill, 
For justice on thee. 



The Murderer's Secret.— Wbmih. 

[These parts may be spoken together, or separately.! 

The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and 
steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. 
The circumstances, now clearly in evidence, spread out the 
whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined 
victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to 
whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night 
held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters, 
through the window already prepared, into an unoccupied apart- 
ment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half lighted 
by the moon ; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches 
the door of the chamber. Of this he moves the lock, by soft 
and continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges without noise; 
and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room 
was uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of 
the innocent sleeper was turned from the murderer, and the 
beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, 
showed him where to strike. The fatal blow is given ! and the 
victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of 
sleep to the repose of death ! It is the assassin's purpose to 



THE MURDERER'S SECRET. 339 

ma&e sure work ; and he yet plies the dagger, though it waus 
obvious that life had been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. 
He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim a* 
the heart, and replaces it again over the wounds of the poniard ' 
To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse ! He 
feels for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer ! It is accom- 
plished. The deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to 
the windjw, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. 
He has done the murder — no eye has seen hjm, no ear has 
heard him. The secret is his own, and it is safe ! 

Ah ! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret 
can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither 
nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is 
safe. Not to speak of that eye which glances through all dis- 
guises, and beholds every thing, as in the splendor of noon, — 
such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by man. 



The Same. Part Second. — Wbbsteb. 

True it is, generally speaking, that " murder will out." True 
it is, that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, 
that those who break the great law of Heaven, by shedding man's 
blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery ; especially in a 
case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must and will 
come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to explore 
every man, every thing, every circumstance, connected with the 
time and place ; a thousand ears catch every whisper ; a thou- 
sand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all 
their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a 
blaze of discovery. Meantime the guilty soul can not keep its 
own secret. 

It is false to itself ; or rather it feels an irresistible impulse of 
conscience to be true to itself; it labors under its guilty posses- 
sion, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was 
not made for the residence of such an inhabitant ; it finds itself 
preyed on by a torment which it dares not acknowledge to God 
or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it asks no sympathy or 
assistance, either from heaven or earth. The secret which the 
murderer possesses soon comes to possess him ; and, like the 
evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him 
whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to 
his throat, and demnding disclosure. He thinks the whole 



340 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its 
workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his 
master. It betrays his discretion ; it breaks down his courage 
it conquers his prudence. When suspicions, from without, be- 
gin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstances to entangle 
him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst 
forth. It must be confessed ; it will be confessed ; there is no 
refuge from confession but suicide ; and suicide is confession. 



War with France. —J. c. Cauioun. 

The first thing that strikes me, sir, in casting my eyes to the 
future, is the utter impossibility that war, should there unfortu- 
nately be one, can have an honorable termination. The capacity 
of France to inflict injury upon us is ten times greater than ours 
to inflict injuries on her ; while the cost of the war, in proportion 
to her means, would be in nearly the same proportion less than 
ours to our means. She has relatively a small commerce to be 
destroyed, while we have the largest in the world, in proportion 
to our capital and population. She may threaten and harass our 
coast, while her own is safe from assault. 1 do not hesitate to 
pronounce, sir, that a war with France will be among the great- 
est calamities — greater than a war with England herself. The 
power of the latter to annoy us may be greater than that of the 
former ; but so is ours, in turn, greater to annoy England than 
France. Nothing can be more destructive to our commerce and 
navigation than for England to be neutral, while we are belliger- 
ent, in a contest with such a country as France. The whole of 
our commercial marine, with our entire shipping, would pass al- 
most instantly into the hands of England. With the exception 
of our public armed vessels, there would be scarcely a flag of 
ours afloat on the ocean. We grew rich by being neutral while 
England was belligerent. It was that which so suddenly buili 
up the mighty fabric of our prosperity and greatness. Reverse 
the position : let England be neutral while we are belligerent, 
and the sources of our wealth and prosperity would be speedily 
exhausted. 

In a just and necessary war, all these consequences ought to be 
fearlessly met. Though a friend to peace, when a proper occa- 
sion occurs I would be among the last to dread the consequences 
of war. I think the wealth and blood of a country are well po jred 
put in maintaining a just, honorable, and necessary war but, in 



THE PRESERVATION OF THE UNION. 341 

in such a war as that with which the country is now threatened 
— a mere war of etiquette — a war turning on a question so 
trivial as whether an explanation shall or shall not be given — - 
no, whether it has or has not been given, (for that is the rea» 
point on which the controversy turns,) — to put in jeopardy the 
lives and property of our citizens, and the liberty and institutions 
of our country, is worse than folly — is madness. I say the liberty 
and institutions of the country. I hold them to be in imminent 
danger. Such has been the grasp of executive power, that we 
have not been able to resist its usurpations, even in a period of 
peace ; and how much less shall we be able, with the vast in- 
crease of power and patronage which a war must confer on thai 
department ? In a sound condition of the country, with our in- 
stitutions in their full vigor, and every department confined to its 
proper sphere, we would have nothing to fear from a war with 
France, or any other power ; but our system is deeply diseased, 
and we may fear the worst in being involved in a war at such a 
juncture. 



The Preservation of the Union.— Cass. 

Sib, 1 may well appeal to those who find in the constitution 
or out of the constitution this power to control the territories, 
whether it is a power that ought to be exercised under existing 
circumstances. Here is one half of a great country which be- 
lieves, with a unanimity perhaps without a parallel in grave national 
questions, that the constitution has delegated to Congress no such 
power whatever. And there is a large portion of the other half 
which entertains similar views ; while of those who see in the 
constitution sufficient grounds for legislative action, there are 
many who admit, indeed, probably there are few who deny, that 
the question is not free from serious doubts. 

Besides the want of constitutional power, there are at least 
fourteen states of this Union which see in this measure a direct 
attack upon their rights, and a disregard of their feelings and 
interests, as injurious in itself as it is offensive to their pride of 
character, and incompatible with the existence of those bonds 
of amity which are stronger than constitutional ties to hold us 
together. No man can shut his eyes to the excitement which 
prevails there, and which is borne to us by the press in count- 
less articles coming from legislative proceedings, from popular 
assemblies, and from all the sources whence public opinion w 
ierived, and be insensible to the evil day that is upon us. I 



342 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

believe this Union will survive all the dangers with which it may 
be manaced, however trying the circumstances in which it may 
be placed. I believe it is not destined to perish till long after it 
shall have fulfilled the great mission confided to it, of example 
and encouragement to the nations of the earth who are struggling 
with the despotism of centuries, and groping their way in a dark- 
ness once impenetrable, but where the light of knowledge and 
freedom is beginning to disperse the gloom. 

But to maintain this proud position, this integrity of political 
existence, on which so much for us and for the world depends, 
we must carefully avoid those sectional questions so much and 
so forcibly deprecated by the father of his country, and culti- 
vating a spirit of mutual regard, adding to the considerations of 
interest which hold us together the higher motives of affection 
and of affinity of views and of sympathies. Sad will be the day 
when the first drop of blood is shed in the preservation of this 
Union. The day need never come, and never will come, if the 
same spirit of compromise and of concession by each to the feel- 
ings of all, which animated our fathers, continues to animate us 
and our children. But if powers offensive to one portion of the 
country, and of doubtful obligation, — to say the least of it, — are 
to be exercised by another, and under circumstances of peculiar 
excitement, this confederation may be rent in twain, leaving an- 
other example of that judicial blindness with which God, in his 
providence, sometimes visits the sins of nations. 



The True Nature of our Government, 

D. Ulmann, 

The great truth which was promulgated by the Declaration of 
Independence, and established by the war of the revolution, and 
made the distinguishing characteristic of our nationality, was, 
that all legitimate power resides in, and is derived from, the peo- 
ple. This sublime truth, to us so self-evident, so simple, so ob- 
vious, was before that time measurably undeveloped in the history 
of the world. Philosophers, in their dreams, had built ideal gov- 
ernments ; Plato had luxuriated in the happiness of his fanciful 
republic ; Sir Thomas More had reveled in the bright visions of 
his Utopia ; the immortal Milton had uttered his sublime views 
on freedom ; and the great Locke had published his profound 
speculations on the t*ue principles of government ; but never 
until the establishment of American independence, was it. except 



TRUE NATURE OF OUR GOVERNMENT. 343 

in very imperfect modes, acknowledged by a nation, and made 
the corner stone and foundation of its government, that the sover- 
eign power is vested in the mass. It was a total condemnation 
of all prevalent political theories ; an absolute contradiction of 
the doctrines of the divine right of kings to reign, and of passive 
obedience ; an emanation from, and a constituent part of, the age- 
long movement of the human mind — the principle of progress, 
it burst upon mankind like the roar of thunder in a cloudless 
sky, and the hearts of nations leaped with sympathy. They felt 
that a hidden power had been revealed to man, a power destmed 
to advance in its glorious career of conquest, until the day when 
it shall spring at a single bound to the throne of the world. 

This fundamental principle of our republican government, the 
sovereignty of the people, when analyzed, resolves itself into the 
equal and unrestrained right of each mdividual to judge and act 
for himself in all matters of social, civil, political, and religious 
import. When each constituent member of the community freely 
and fearlessly forms and expresses his own opinions, and consents 
to be controlled by the general result of the opinions of all who 
are united in the same organization, we have a complete ex- 
emplification of the theory of our government. A community 
thus constituted exhibits the strongest possible contrast to that 
most abominable and abhorred of all human governments, a des- 
potism. In the former, all are equal, and the combined opinions 
of a majority control. In the latter, one mind, or a few minds, 
control, but the great mass are slaves. Between these two ex- 
tremes may be arranged those governments in which equal 
political rights are partially extended or curtailed. But the 
slightest curtailment impairs the fundamental principle. Divest 
but a single member of this great republic of his right to form 
and exercise his free opinion on all matters, political and reli- 
gious, and you mar the beauty and symmetry of the system, and 
so far impair its perfection. Entire equality, entire freedom in 
the formation of political and religious opinions, and the exer^ 
cise of political and religious rights, are the vital principle of our 
republic. It matters not, to the public weal, whether this free- 
dom of individual opinion be crushed by a single despot, or be 
extorted by the tyranny of an oligarchy, or a hierarchy ; it is lost 
to the man ; and the elementary principle of progress and free- 
dom is equally extinguished, or silenced. So far as the despot, 
oligarchy, or hierarchy, assumes a control over his opinions, he 
is driven back from the freedom of an equal, independent citizen, 
and is constrained to approach the condition of a subject or a 
slave. 



S44 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 



The Sentinels of Liberty.— wbbsto. 

When the members of this house shall lose the freedom of 
speech and debate; when they shall surrender the right of 
publicly and freely canvassing all important measures of the 
executive ; when they shall not be allowed to maintain their 
own authority and their own privileges by vote, declaration, or 
resolution, they will then be no longer free representatives of a 
free people, but slaves themselves, and fit instruments to make 
slaves of others. 

Sir, if the people have a right to discuss the official conduct 
of the executive, so have their representatives. We have been 
taught to regard a representative of the people as a sentinel on 
the watch-tower of liberty. Is he to be blind, though visible 
danger approaches ? Is he to be deaf, though sounds of peril 
fill the air ? Is he to be dumb, while a thousand duties impel 
him to raise the cry of alarm ? Is he not, rather, to catch the 
lowest whisper which breathes intention or purpose of encroach- 
ment on the public liberties, and to give his voice breath and 
utterance at the first appearance of danger ? Is not his eye 
to traverse the whole horizon, with the keen and eager vision of 
an unhooded hawk, detecting, through all disguises, every enemy 
advancing, in any form, toward the citadel which he guards ? 

Sir, this watchfulness for public liberty, this duty of foreseeing 
danger and proclaiming it, this promptitude and boldness in 
resisting attacks on the constitution from any quarter, this de- 
fence of established landmarks, this fearless resistance of what- 
ever would transcend or remove them, — all belong to the repre- 
sentative character, are interwoven with its very nature, and of 
which it can not be deprived, without converting an active, 
intelligent, faithful agent of the people into an unresisting and 
passive instrument of power. A representative body which gives 
up these rights and duties gives itself up. It is a representative 
body no longer. It has broken the tie between itself and its 
constituents, and henceforth is fit only to be regarded as an inert, 
self-sacrificed mass, from which all app-cpriate principle of 
vitality has departed forever. 



POLITICAL CORRUPTION. 345 



Political Corruption. — McDupfie. 

Sib, we are apt to treat the idea of our own corruptibility 
as utterly visionary, and to ask, with a grave affectation of digni- 
ty, " What ! do you think a member of Congress can be corrupt- 
ed ? " — Sir, I speak what I have long and deliberately considered, 
when I say, that since man was created, there never has been a 
political body on the face of the earth that would not be cor- 
rupted under the same circumstances. Corruption steals upon 
us in a thousand insidious forms, when we are least aware of its 
approaches. 

Of all the forms in which it can present itself, the bribery of 
office is the most dangerous, because it assumes the guise of 
patriotism to accomplish its fatal sorcery. We are often asked, 
" Where is the evidence of corruption ? Have you seen it ? " Sir, 
do you expect to see it ? You might as well expect to see the 
embodied forms of pestilence and famine stalking before you, as 
to see the latent operations of this insidious power. We may 
walk amidst it and breathe its contagion, without being conscious 
of its presence. 

All experience teaches us the irresistible power of temptation, 
when vice assumes the form of virtue. The great enemy of 
mankind could not have consummated his infernal scheme for 
the seduction of our first parents, but for the disguise in which 
he presented himself. Had he appeared as the devil, in his 
proper form — had the spear of Ithuriel disclosed the naked 
deformity of the fiend of hell — the inhabitants of paradise would 
have shrunk with horror from his presence. 

But he came as the insinuating serpent, and presented a 
beautiful apple, the most delicious fruit in all the garden. He 
told his glowing story to the unsuspecting victim of his guile- 
" It can be no crime to taste of this delightful fruit. It will 
disclose to you the knowledge of good and evil. It will raise 
you to an equality with the angels." Such, sir, was the process , 
and in this simple but impressive narrative we have the most 
beautiful and philosophical illustration of the frailty of man, and 
the power of temptation, that could possibly be exhibited. 

Mr. Chairman, I have been forcibly struck with the similarity 
between our present situation and that of Eve, after it was an 
nounced that Satan was on the borders of paradise. We, too, 
nave been warned that the enemy is on our borders. But God 
forbid that the similitude should be carried any farther. Eve, 
conscious of her innocence, sough* temptation and defied it. 



346 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

The catastrophe is too fatally known to us all. She went " with 
the blessings of Heaven on her head, and its purity in her 
heart," guarded by the ministry of angels ; she returned cov- 
ered with shame, under the heavy denunciation of heaven's 
everlasting curse. 



Instability of Human Governments, — Rutlbdgb. 

Sir, human nature is the same every where ; and man is 
precisely the same sort of being in the new world that he is in 
the old. All Europe was once free. But where now is the 
diet of Sweden ? Where are the states of Holland, and Portu- 
gal, and the republics of Switzerland and Italy ? The people of 
those countries were once free and happy, but their governments, 
for the want of some protecting check, some inherent principle 
to defend themselves, have all been subverted ; they have all 
traveled the same road ; it is as plain as a turnpike : it is pointed 
out by the ruins of other republics. 

Every where the same causes have produced the same effects 
The honorable gentleman says he does not want to seek exam- 
ples across the Atlantic. Sir, is this wise ? Are we to shut our 
eyes to the light of history, and turn away from the voice of 
experience ? Sir, the untutored Indian marks on his tomahawk 
great events as they pass, and augurs what will happen from 
knowing what has happened ; and shall we travel on without 
noticing the finger boards erected by historians for our security ? 

The gentleman censures our having noticed France, and read 
a passage from a speech of the illustrious Washington, where he 
called the French a great and wise people. What has been the 
fate of this gallant people ? Where is their constitution ? We 
have seen La Fayette in the Champ de Mars, at the head of fifty 
thousand warriors, who, with one hand grasping their swords, 
And the other laid on the altar, swore, in the presence of Al- 
mighty God, they never would desert their constitution. 

Through all the departments of France similar pledges were 
given. Frenchmen received their constitution as the followers 
of Mahomet did the Alcoran, and thought it came to them from 
Heaven. They swore on their standards and their sabers never 
to abandon it. But, sir, this constitution has vanished : their 
swords, which were to have formed a rampart around it, are now 
worn by the consular janizaries, and the republican standards 
are among the trophies which decc rate the vau ted roof if tl.e 
consult palucfc. 



RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 347 



Religious Education. — e. a. Nismt 

No citizen entertains stronger convictions of the necessity of 
education than I do, or a more honest zeal for its diffusion ; I 
would teach all — dispel every shade that darkens the mind of 
my country, and establish at once the reign of light. No man 
within the limits of this broad land should plead ignorance for 
moral delinquency or political heresy. Each one should know 
his rights and the means of maintaining them — should under- 
stand all his duties, personal, relative, and divine, and enjoy Na- 
ture by a just appreciation of the wisdom of her laws, and the 
beauty and sublimity of her exhibitions. 

I would light up the peasant's cot with the radiance of sci- 
ence, and kindle the beacon of letters upon the dark mountains 
of ignorance — a guide to the weary wanderers of mortality. 
Every woman should feel her equality, by equal culture — should 
reign the graceful queen of domestic and social life, command- 
ing allegiance by the polish of her manners, the sweetness of her 
temper, and the resources of her mind ; dispensing, with en- 
dearing benignity, such favors as she alone can give. 

Above all, as the mothers of society, females should know 
well what constitutes greatness ; what right and wrong ; what 
genius — liberty — science — God ; that they may form well and 
mold aright the character of their sons. Intellectual improve- 
ment merely, however, is not adequate to the happiness of indi- 
viduals or the security of the state. There is a wide difference 
between the education of thought and of moral principle. One 
comes to illumine, the other to purify the state. One expands 
the mind ; the other directs and sanctifies motives. One is 
light — beautiful, it is true, yet often cold as Alpine reflections ; 
the other is warm, and genial, and vivifying. 

Knowledge, I concede, is a means of propagating virtue, and I 
might add, a state of ignorance is iucompatible with general 
piety ; still there is no necessary connection between human 
science and virtuous conduct. In science there is no high, and 
holy, and uniform standard of right and wrong ; nothing to 
restrain the passions and curb the will ; nothing to hold the 
conscience and the conduct to rectitude, by the richness of its 
rewards, or the might and eternity of its punishments. The 
mind may teem with thought, yet the character be destitute of 
honor, justice, mercy, and benevolence. 

The astronomer may explore the heavens, and read intelligi- 
ble the language of the stars, yet defraud his neighbor. The 



348 ROSS'S SPEAKER, 

historian may know for himself the polity and prowess, the tn. 
umphs and defeats, the rise and fall of empires, yet fulfill no 
duty, relative or divine. The orator may delight the ear, and 
arouse or tranquil! ze the feelings, sway the mob, and rule the 
Senate, yet plot and perpetuate treason against his country. So, 
too, the judge may grace the ermin by the depth of his science 
and the extent of his legal lore, and still receive from the hand 
of wealth or power the wages of corruption. The poet, fancy- 
winged with living light, may traverse earth, and sea, and air, 
yet see no God in all. Religious education is the cheap defense 
of nations. 



Tribute to Chatham, — w»t. 

When the great Earl of Chatham first made his appearance 
in the House of Commons, and began to astonish and transport 
the British Parliament and the British nation by the boldness, 
the force, and range of his thoughts, and the celestial fire and 
pathos of his eloquence, it is well known that the minister, Wal- 
pole, and his brother Horace, from motives very easily under- 
stood, exerted all their wit, all their oratory, all their acquire- 
ments of every description, sustained and enforced by the 
unfeeling " insolence of office," to heave a mountain on his 
gigantic genius, and hide it from the world. Poor and power- 
less attempt ! The tables were turned. He rose upon them, 
in the might and irresistible energy of his genius, and in spite 
of all their convulsions, frantic agonies, and spasms, he strangled 
them and their whole faction with as much ease as Hercules did 
the serpent Python. 

Who can turn over the debates of the day, and read the 
account of this conflict between youthful ardor and hoary-headed 
cunning and power, without kindling in the cause of the tyro, 
and shouting at his victory. That they should have attempted 
to pass off the grand, yet solid and judicious operations of a mind 
like his as being mere theatrical start and emotion, the giddy, 
hare-brained eccentricities of a romantic boy, — that they should 
have had the presumption to suppose themselves capable of 
chaining down to the floor of the Parliament a genius so ethereal, 
towering, and sublime, — seems unaccountable. Why did they 
not, in the next breath, by way of crowning the climax of vanity, 
bid the magnificent fire-ball to descend from its exalted and 
appropriate region, and perform its splendid tour along the sur- 
face of the earth ? 



NAPOLEON FALLEN. 349 



Napoleon fallen.— Pmixiw. 

He is fallen ! We may now pause before that splendid prodi 
gy, which towered amongst us like some ancient ruin, whose 
frown terrified the glance its magnificence attracted. Grand, 
gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne a sceptered hermit, 
wrapped in the solitude of his own originality. A mind bold, 
independent, and decisive, a will despotic in its dictates, an 
energy that distanced expedition, and a conscience pliable to 
every touch of interest, marked the outline of this extraordi- 
nary character, the most extraordinary, perhaps, that, in the 
annals of this world, ever rose, or reigned, or fell. 

Flung into life in the midst of a revolution that quickened 
every energy of a people who acknowledge no superior, he 
commenced his course a stranger by birth and a scholar by 
charity. With no friend but his sword, and no fortune but his 
talents, he rushed in the list where rank, and wealth, and genius 
had arrayed themselves, and competition fled from him as from 
the glance of destiny. 

He knew no motive but interest ; he acknowledged no crite- 
rion but success ; he worshiped no God but ambition, and with 
an Eastern devotion he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry. Sub- 
sidiary to this, there was no creed that he did not profess, there 
was no opinion that he did not promulgate. In the hope of a 
dynasty, he upheld the crescent ; for the sake of a divorce, he 
bowed before the cross : the orphan of St. Louis, he became the 
adopted child of the republic ; and with a parricidal ingratitude, 
on the ruins both of the throne and tribune he reared the throne 
of his despotism. A professed Catholic, he imprisoned the pope ; 
a pretended patriot, he impoverished the country ; and in the 
name of Brutus he grasped without remorse, and wore without 
shame, the diadem of the Caesars. 

Through this pantomime of policy fortune played the clown 
to his caprices. At his touch crowns crumbled, beggars reigned, 
systems vanished, the wildest theories took the color of his 
whim, and all that was venerable, and all that was novel, changed 
places with the rapidity of a drama. Even apparent defeat 
assumed the appearance of victory ; his flight from Egypt con- 
firmed his destiny ; ruin itself only elevated him to empire. 

But if his fortune was great, his genius was transcendent ; 
decision flashed upon his councils ; and it was the same to 
decide and to perform. To inferior intellects his combinations 



350 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

appeared perfectly impossible, his plans perfectly impracticable ; 
but in his hands, simplicity marked their development and 
success vindicated their adoption. His person partook the 
character of his mind ; if the one never yielded in the cabinet, 
the other never bent in the field. Nature had no obstacle that 
he did not surmount, space no opposition that he did not spurn ; 
•and whether amid Alpine rocks, Arabian sands, or Polar snows, 
he seemed proof against peril, and empowered with ubiquity. 

The whole continent trembled at beholding the audacity of his 
designs, and the miracle of their execution. Scepticism bowed 
to the prodigies of his performance ; romance assumed the air of 
history ; nor was there aught too incredible for belief, or too 
fanciful for expectation, when the world saw a subaltern of 
Corsica waving his imperial flag over her most ancient, capitals. 
All the visions of antiquity became commonplace in his contem- 
plation : kings were his people, nations were his outposts ; and 
he disposed of courts, and crowns, and camps, and churches, 
and cabinets, as if they were titular dignitaries of the chess 
board. Amid all these changes he stood immutable as ada 
mant. 



Napoleon at Rest— Pierpont. 

His falchion flashed along the Nile ; 

His hosts he led through Alpine snows ; 
O'er Moscow's towers, that blazed the while, 

His eagle flag unrolled, and froze. 

Here sleeps he now, alone : not one 
Of all the kings whose crowns he gave 

Bends o'er his dust, nor wife nor son 
Has ever seer or sought his grave. 

Behind this sea-girt rock, the star 

That led him on from crown to crown 

Has sunk ; and nations from afar 
Gazed as it faded and went down. 

High is his couch : the ocean flood, 
Far, far below, by storms is curled ; 

As round him heaved, while high he stood 
A stormy and unstable world. 



CONSEQUENCES OF OUR INDEPENDENCE. 351 

Alone he sleeps : the mountain cloud, 

That night hangs round him, and the breath 

Of morning scatters, is the shroud 

That wraps the conqueror's clay in death. 

Pause here. The far off world at last 

Breathes free ; the hand that shook its thrones, 

And to the earth its miters cast, 

Lies powerless now beneath these stones. 



Consequences of our Independence.— Maxcy. 

While we celebrate the anniversary of our independence, 
let us not pass over in silence the defenders of our country. 
Where are those brave Americans whose lives were cloven 
down in the tempest of battle ? Are they not bending from the 
bright abodes ? A voice from the altar cries, " These are they 
who loved their country ; these are they who died for liberty." 
We now reap the fruit of their agony and toil. Let their mem- 
ories be eternally embalmed in our bosoms. Let the infants of 
all posterity prattle their fame, and drop tears of courage for 
their fate. 

The consequences of American independence will soon reach 
to the extremities of the world. The shining car of freedom 
will soon roll over the necks of kings, and bear off the oppressed 
to scenes of liberty and peace. The clamors of war will cease 
under the whole heaven. The tree of liberty will shoot its top 
up to the sun. Its boughs will hang over the ends of the whole 
world, and wearied nations will lie down and rest under its 
shade. 

Here, in America, stands the asylum for the distressed and 
persecuted of all nations. The vast temple of freedom rises 
majestically fair. Founded on a rock, it will remain unshaken 
by the force of tyrants, undiminished by the flight of time. 
Long streams of light emanate through its portals, and chase the 
darkness from distant nations. Its turrets will swell into the 
heavens, rising above every tempest ; and the pillar of divine 
glory, descending from God, will rest forever on its summit. 



8*2 BOSS'S SPEAKER 



Gentleman and Irish Servant. 

{Gentleman seated at a table; Irish servant enters, in search 
of employment.) 

Irishman. {Taking off his hat and bowing.) An' plaze yer 
honor, would ye be after giving employment to a faithful ser- 
vant, who has been rekimminded to call upon yer honor ? 

Gentleman. You appear to have walked some distance 
Does it rain ? 

Ir. Never a drop, plaze yer honor. 

Gent. {Looking out of window.) Ah, I see the sun shines 
now ! — post nubila Phoebus. 

Ir. The post has not yet arrived, sir. 

Gent. What may I call your name ? 

Ir. My name is Michael Carnes, and 1 have always been 
called Mike, and you are at liberty to call me that same. 

Gent. Well, Mike, who was your last master ? 

Ir. Mr. Jacobs, plaze yer honor ; and a nicer man never 
brathed. 

Gent. How long did you live with Mr. Jacobs ? 

Ir. In troth, sir, I can't tell. I passed my time so pleasantl} 
in his sarvice that I niver kept any account of it, at all, at all. 
I might have lived with him all the days of my life, and a great 
dale longer, if I had plazed to do so. 

Gent. Why, then, did you leave him ? 

Ir. It was by mutual agrament. The truth was, a slight 
difference arose betwane us, and he said I -hould not live with 
him longer ; and at the same instant, you see, I declared I 
would not live with him; so we parted on good terms — bv 
agrament, you see. 

Gent. Was not your master a proud man ? 

Ir. Indade he was, bless his honest sowl ! he would not do 
a mane act for the univarse. 

Gent. Well, Mike, how old are you now ? 

Ir. I am just the same age of Patrick O'Leary ; he and I 
were born the same wake. 

Gent. And how old is he ? 

Ir. He is just my age. He and I are just of an age, you 
see, only one of us is older than the other ; but which is the 
oldest I can not say, neither can Patrick. 

Gent. Were you born in Dublin ? 

Ir. No, sir, plaze yer honor, though I might have been if 1 
had desired ; but as I always preferred the country, I was born 



FRENCHMAN AND HIS ENGLISH TUTOR. 353 

there ; and, plaze God, if I live and do well I'll be buried in the 
same parish I was born in. 

Qent. You can write, I suppose. 

Ir. Yes, sir ; as fast as a dog can trot. 

Gent. What is the usual mode of travelling in Ireland ? 

Ir. Why, sir, if you travel by water you must take a boat ; 
and if you travel by land, either in a chaise or on horseback ; 
and they who can not afford either of them are obliged to trudge 
it on foot, which, to my mind, is decidedly the safest and chapest 
mode of moving about. 

Gent. And which is the pleasantest season for travelling ? 

Ir. Faith, sir, I think that season in which a man has most 
money in his pocket. 

Gent. I think your roads are passably good. 

Ir. They are all quite passable if you only pay the tollman. 

Gent. I understand you have many black cattle in Ireland. 

Ir. Faith, we have plenty of every color. 

Gent. I think you have too much rain in your country. 

Ir. So every one says ; but Sir Boyle has promised to bring 
in an act of Parliament in favor o** fair weather, and I am sure 
the poor hay-makers and turf-cutters will bless him for it. It 
was he that first proposed that every quart bottle should hold 
just two pints. 

Gent. As you have many fine rivers, I suppose you have an 
abundance of nice fish. 

Ir. And well may you say that, for water never wet better 
ones. Why, master, I won't tell you a lie ; but if you were at 
the Boyne you could get salmon and trout for nothing, and if 
you were at Ballyshanny you'd get them for much less. 

Gent. Well, you seem to be a clever fellow, and if you will 
call again to-morrow I will see what I can do for you. 

Ir. Pace to your good sowl ! I will surely do so. {Bowing, 
leaves.) 



Frenchman and his English Tutor. 

Frenchman. Ha, my good friend ! 1 have met with one dif 
ficulty — one ver' strange word. How you call h-o-u-g-h, ha ? 

Tutor. H-o-u-g-h spells huff. 

Fr. Ver' good, huff; and snuff — him what you put in dc 
nose — you spell s-n-o-u-g-h, ha ? 

Tu. O, no, no ! S-n-u-double-f spells snuff. The truth is 
words ending in ough are not very regular in their pronunciation 
23 



854 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Fr. Ah, ver' good ! 'Tis beau'ful language ! H-o-u-g-h if 
huff. I will remember him. And c-o-u-g-h is cuff. I have one 
bad cuff, ha ? 

Tu. No, that is wrong. We say kauf, not cuff. 

Fr. Kauf 7 Ver' well. Huff and kauf me no forget ; and, 
pardon me, how you call him what makes bread with — 
d-o-u-g-h, duff, ha ? 

Tu. No, not duff. 

Fr. Not duff! Ah, monsieur, I understan' ; it is dauf, ha ? 

Tu. No ; d-o-u-g-h spells doe. 

Fr. Doe ? Ver' fine language, sure ! wonderful language ! 
D-o-u-g-h is doe, and t-o-u-g-h is toe, certainment The bread 
is made of doe, and my beefsteak is very toe, ha ? 

Tu. O, no, no ! You should say tuff and not toe. 

Fr. Tuff? Then him what the farmer uses, what you call 
him, p-1-o-u-g-h — pluff? ha? no? Me no get him right? Is 
his name ploe, like doe ? One ver' fine ploe, ha ? 

Tu. You are still wrong, my friend. P-1-o-u-g-h spells plow. 

Fr. Plow ! ha ? Ver' wonderful language ! Me understand 
him ver' soon. Plow, doe, kauf, and tuff. Then one more, 
r-o-u-g-h ; what you call General Taylor, — rauf and ready, 
ha ? No ; certainment, then, it must be row and ready, ha ? 

Tu. No. R-o-u-g-h spells ruff. 

Fr. Ruff, ha ? Let me not forget him. R-o-u-g-h is ruff, 
and b-o-u-g-h is buff, ha ? 

Tu. No ; bow, and not buff. 

Fr. Ver' wonderful language, sure ! And what you call 
t-h-r-o-u-g-h ? — throw ? or thruff? or what you call him ? 

Tu. T-h-r-o-u-g-h spells thru. 

Fr. Ah, 'tis ver' simple, sure ! — wonderful language ! but 1 
have had e-n-o-u-g-h ; what you call him, ha ? 

Tu. Enuff. But that you may not forget these terminations, 
it may be well for you to write them as I spell and pronounce 
them. 

(Tutor spells and Frenchman writes as follows.) 

H-o-u-g-h. Huff. — C-o-u-g-h. Kauf. — P-l-o-u-g-h. Plow. 
— D-o-u-g-h. Doe. — R-o-u-g-h. Ruff. — S-1-o-u-g-h. Slou 
and 57m/. — L-o-u-g-h. Lok. —T-h-r-o-u-g-h. Thru. —T-o-u-g-h. 
Tuf. — T-h-o-r-o-u-g-h. Thur-ro. — B-o-u-g-h. Bow — H-i-c- 
c-o-u-g-h. Hik-kup. — B-o-r-o-u-g-h. Bur-o. — T T-o-u-g-h. 
Trof. — E-n-o-u-g-h. Enuf. — F-u-r-1-o-u-g-h. Fur-l* 

Fr. Enuff, sure ! Ver' strange language ! You certain- 
ment have given me e-n-o-u-g-h for dis one lesson, and now I 
will take what de soldiers call one f-u-r-1-o-u-g-h. 



A PLEA FOR THE ANCIENT LANGUAGES. 355 



A Plea for the Ancient Languages 

New Obleans Creole. 

The studies of youth are the mere training of the mind for 
the contests in which it is afterwards to mingle. They are not 
the race, but the preparation for it ; and where can living waters 
that may refresh and invigorate be drawn from richer fountains 
than the mountain springs of classic literature ? Where can 
poetry, at once the cause and the indication of a nation's feelings, 
gaze with more inspired admiration than at that wonderful mon- 
ument of human genius, the poems of Homer ? that monument, 
which, erected in an age almost unknown, has withstood the 
assaults of time and skill, and towers above all modern efforts, 
the first and most exalted of its kind ? Who can dwell upon his 
glowing pages, and not catch some portion of that light, which, 
dispersed in thousands and tens of thousands of channels, has 
filled the world with bright images and illustrious thoughts ? 
Who can read and study him, and not find his own soul enlarged 
by every splendid achievement, by every lofty sentiment, by the 
wisdom of the old and the " daring of the young," the filial piety 
and devoted friendship that breathe, live, and move in this 
matchless work ? 

Who can stand in the presence of Plato, and not find his mind 
elevated by the teachings, with all their errors, of this wonderful 
man? Plato — of whom his admiring countrymen said, "The 
father of the gods, had he spoken in Greek, would have read no 
other language than Plato's." Plato — of whose unrivaled works 
it has been beautifully said, " We stand as in a vast and con- 
nected fabric, vistas and aisles of thought opening on every side 
— high thoughts that raise the mind to heaven ; pillars and 
arches ranged in seeming confusion, and a veil of tracery and 
foliage thrown over all ; but all rich with a light, streaming 
through dim religious forms ; all leading up to God ; all blessed 
with an effluence from him, — though an effluence dimmed and 
half lost in the contaminated reason of man. 

Who can, in imagination, become one of the audience of that 
mighty tragic triumvirate, whose productions are still dear to 
every scholar, and not find his mind enlarged and strength given 
to the wings of his own thoughts by the energy of iEschylus, 
the grace of Sophocles, the tenderness and pathos of the brilliant 
although unequal Euripides? Where can the patriot find purer 
principles of freedom than those which journey through the 
pages of ancient literature as its companions and its guides." 



356 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

When did the accents of liberty roll upon the tongue with a 
more commanding and pervading influence than in the vehement, 
yet chastened, philippics of Demosthenes, the flowery, the pol- 
ished, yet terrible, denunciations of Cicero ? Who can behold 
the one, in that fierce democracy of Athens, — and yet not more 
fierce in their passions than tyrannous in their critical judgment, 
— raised by his eloquence from capitulating fears, and with a 
withering sneer led against the " man of Macedon," or dwell 
upon the terrible invectives of the other against a Catiline, a 
Verres, or a Clodius, and not bow before the majesty of their 
genius, and find his own powers exalted by the very homage he 
is paying ? 

Where can more beautiful treatises on all that can assuage 
the evils of life, or purer rules of conduct, apart from revelation, 
be found, than those which, composed in hours stolen from the 
cares and tumults of life, were devoted to " friendship " and 
" old age ; " the glowing songs of Pindar, who " harnessed for 
the conqueror the chariot of the Muses ; " the gayety, the grace 
of polished Horace ; the " pictured page " of Livy ; the annals 
of Tacitus ; the majestic dignity of Virgil, yet painting with inimi- 
table tenderness the pure, devoted, life-sacrificing friendship of 
Nisus and Euryalus ? 

" Me, me adsum qui feci — in me 
Convertite ferrum." 

We care not that in after life these early studies may be for 
gotten. We care not though even the characters in which they 
were written become a dead letter to us, and their matchless 
diction as a sealed book ; the deep and noble feelings which 
their fervent study once excited have purified the heart that was 
even their temporary habitation, and left an impress upon our 
thoughts which no forgetfulness can efface. 



Defalcation and Retrenchment — s. s. Prentiss, 

Since the avowal, Mr. Chairman, of that unprincipled and 
barbarian motto, that " to the victors belong the spoils," office, 
which was intended for the service and benefit of the people, 
has become but the plunder of party. Patronage is waved like 
a huge magnet over the land ; and demagogues, like iron filings, 
attracted by a law of their nature, gather and cluster around its 
pales. Never yet lived the demagogue who would not .ake 



DEFALCATION AND RETRENCHMENT. 357 

office. The whole frame of our government — all the institu- 
tions of the country — are thus prostituted to the uses of party. 
Office is conferred as the reward of partisan service ; and what 
is the consequence ? The incumbents, being taught that all 
moneys in their possession belong, not to the people, but to the 
party, it requires but small exertion of casuistry to bring them to 
the conclusion that they have a right to retain what they may 
conceive to be the value of their political services ; just as a 
lawyer holds back his commissions. 

Sir, I have given you but three or four cases of defalcations. 
Would time permit, I could give you a hundred. Like the fair 
sultana of the Oriental legends, I could go on for a thousand and 
one nights ; and even as in those Eastern stories, so in the 
chronicles of the office holders, the tale would ever be of heaps 
of gold, massive ingots, uncounted riches. Why, sir, Aladdin's 
wonderful lamp was nothing to it. They seem to possess the 
identical cap of Fortunatus. Some wish for fifty thousand do.- 
lars, some for a hundred thousand, and some for a million, — 
and behold, it lies in glittering heaps before them ! Not even 

" The gorgeous East, with richest hand, 
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold " 

in such lavish abundance, as does this administration upon its 
followers. Pizarro held not forth more dazzling lures to his 
robber band when he led them to the conquest of the " Children 
of the Sun." 

And now it is proposed to make up these losses through de- 
faulters by retrenchment. And what do you suppose are to be 
the subjects of this new and sudden economy ? What branches 
of the public service are to be lopped off on account of the licen- 
tious rapacity of the office holders ? I am too indignant to tell 
you. Look into the report of the secretary of the treasury, and 
you will find out. Well, sir, what are they ? Pensions, harbors, 
and lighthouses ! Yes, sir ; these are recommended as proper 
subjects for retrenchment. First of all, the scarred veterans of 
the revolution are to be deprived of a portion of the scanty pit- 
tance doled out to them by the cold charity of the country. 
How many of them will you have to send forth as beggars on 
ths very soil which they wrenched from the hand of tyranny, to 
make up the amount of even one of these splendid robberies ? 
How many harbors will it take, — those improvements dedicated 
no less to humanity than to interest, — those nests of commerce 
to which the canvas- winged birds of the ocean flock for safety ? 
How many lighthouses will it take? How many of those bright 

Q 



358 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

eyes of the ocean are to be put out ? How many of those faith- 
ful sentinels who stand along our rocky coast, and, peering far 
out in the darkness, give timely warning to the hardy mariner 
where tne lee shore threatens, — how many of these, I ask, are 
to be discharged from their humane service ? Why, the propo- 
sition is almost impious. 1 should as soon wish to put out t?e 
stars of heaven. Sir, my blood boils at the cold-blooded atrocity 
with which the administration proposes thus to sacrifice the very 
family jewels of the country to pay for the consequences of its 
own profligacy. 



The South during the War of 1812. — Hayne, 

I come now to the war of 1812 ; a war which, I well re- 
member, was called, in derision, (while its event was doubtful,) 
the Southern war, and sometimes the Carolina war, but which is 
now universally acknowledged to have done more for the honor 
and prosperity of the country than all other events in our history 
put together. What, sir, were the objects of that war ? " Free 
trade and sailors' rights. 1 ' It was for the protection of northern 
shipping and New England seamen that the country flew to 
arms. What interest had the South in that contest ? If they 
had sat down coldly to calculate the value of their interests 
involved in it, they would have found that they had every thing 
to lose, and nothing to gain. But, sir, with that generous devo- 
tion to country so characteristic of the South, they only asked if 
the rights of any portion of their fellow -citizens had been 
invaded ; and when told that northern ships and New England 
seamen had been arrested on the common highway of nations, 
they felt that the honor of their country was assailed ; and, 
acting on that exalted sentiment " which feels a stain like a 
wound," they resolved to seek, in open war, for a redress of 
those injuries which it did not become freemen to endure. 

Sir, the whole South, animated as by a common impulse, cor- 
dially united in declaring and promoting that war. South Caro- 
lina sent to your councils, as the advocates and supporters of 
that war, the noblest of her sons. How they fulfilled that trust 
let a grateful country tell. Not a measure was adopted, not a 
battle fought, not a victory won, which contributed, in any de- 
gree, to the success of that war, to which southern councils and 
southern valor did not largely contribute. Sir, since South 
Carolina is assailed, I must be suffered to speak it to her praise, 
'hat at the very moment when, in one quarter we heard it 



AN EXCUSE. 359 

foiemnly proclaimed "that it did not become a religious and 
moral people to rejoice at the victories of our army or our 
navy," her legislature unanimously 

" Resolved, That we will cordially support the government in 
the vigorous prosecution of the war, until a peace can be ob 
tained on honorable terms ; and we will cheerfully submit to 
every privation that may be required of us, by our government 
for the accomplishment of this object." 

South Carolina redeemed that pledge. She threw open her 
treasury to the government. She put at the absolute disposal of 
the officers of the United States all that she possessed — her men, 
her money, and her arms. She appropriated half a million of 
dollars, on her own account, in defense of her maritime frontier ; 
ordered a brigade of state troops to be raised ; and, when left 
to protect herself by her own means, never suffered the enemy 
to touch her soil without being instantly driven off or captured. 
Such, sir, was the conduct of the South — such the conduct of 
my own state — in that dark hour " which tried men's souls ! " 



An Excuse. — E. W. C — Normal School. 

And so Wednesday morning has come again, but with it no 
composition, and I shall be obliged to do what I have never done 
before — ask to be excused, although I know, when the difficul- 
ties under which I labor are understood, my omission to write 
this week will be considered entirely pardonable. 

The matter can be explained in a few words. I have nightly, 
for the last two weeks, seated myself at my table with the full 
intent of inditing a long, sound, well-worded, beautifully written, 
dovetailed composition, but have as regularly overturned the 
inkstand, slammed the books and slates together, and gone to 
bed in a towering passion. 

The cause of all this trouble is, the addition to the family of 
our next neighbor of some musical instrument, of unknown con- 
struction and excruciating power. I am not certain whether it 
is an accordeon or a hand organ, a banjo or a piano-forte ; but 
one thing I do know — it is a certain something which is stamped 
upon my mind as intermediate between a hurdy-gurdy and a 
frying-pan ; a certain something which, if I had the honor of 
naming, I would call a hurdy-gurdy -frying-pan-olio. 

If, perchance, a stray idea, in its wanderings, alights upon my 
Drain, a fresh note from my unknown tormentor, resembling the 



360 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

cadence arising from some swamp in spring time, frightens it 
forever away. Now, I think I have the initiatory sentence per- 
fected, when a strain of " Yankee Doodle " or " Old Dan 
Tucker " sweeps across my auditories, leaving memory as bare 
as the sands of Arabia. Then I attempt to raise my thoughts 
above " the dull regions of sense ; " but suddenly the tune changes, 
and a voice accompanies the instrument, 

" So mournfully and low, 
A ballad of a tender maid heart-broken long ago ! " 

I listen with the most eager attention to the consummation of the 
piece, and the happy couple are comfortably established in an 
orange bower ; and so goes my composition. 

Thus I have passed a great part of my time lately ; and I veri- 
ly believed the cup of my affliction to be full. But not so. A 
few days since a tailor took up his residence on the other side 
of me, and a tailor, too, who is as unlike Charles Lamb's tailors 
as could well be imagined ; for he will sit cross-legged for hours 
together, his voice now swelling out into fortissimo, and then 
contracting to that point where " nothing could live betwixt it 
and silence." 

But this morning I thought to steal a march upon all the per- 
formers ; so I started my composition about five o'clock. After 
writing some two and a half lines, that eternal instrument again 
started off on one of its old tunes. Well, I stopped, of course. 

Having thus briefly related a few of my difficulties, I hope to 
be excused from writing a composition this week. 



Eulogy on Candle Light. — Charles Lamb. 

Hail, candle light ! without disparagement to sun or moon, 
the kindliest luminary of the three ; if we may not rather style 
thee their radiant deputy, mild viceroy of the moon ! We love to 
read, talk, sit silent, eat, drink, sleep, by candle light. It is every 
body's sun and moon : it is our peculiar and household planet. 
Wanting it, what savage, unsocial nights must our ancestors 
have spent, wintering in caves and unilluminated fastnesses ! 
They must have lain about, and grumbled at one another in the 
dark. What repartees could have passed, when you must have 
felt about for a smile, and handled a neighbor's cheek, to be sure 
that he understood it ? This accounts for the seriouspess of th") 



EULOGY ON CANDLE LIGHT. 361 

elder poetry. It has a somber cast, derived from the tradition 
of those unlanterned nights. 

Jokes came in with candles. We wonder how they saw to 
pick up a pin, if they had any. How did they sup ? What a 
medley of chance-carving they must have made of it ! There is 
neither good eating nor drinking in the dark. The senses give 
and take reciprocally. Can you tell veal from pork without 
light ? or distinguish Sherry from pure Malaga ? Take away the 
candle from the smoking man ; by the glimmering of the left 
ashes, he knows that he is still smoking ; but he knows it only by 
an inference, till the restored light, coming in to the aid of the 
olfactories, reveals to both senses the full aroma. Then how he 
redoubles his puffs ! how he burnishes ! 

There is absolutely no such thing as reading, but by a candle. 
We have tried the affectation of a book at noonday in gardens 
and in sultry arbors ; but it was labor thrown away. Those gay 
motes in the beam come about you, hovering and teasing, like 
so many coquettes, that will have you all to their self, and are 
jealous of your abstractions. By the midnight taper the wri- 
ter digests his meditations. By the same light you must 
approach to their perusal, if you would catch the flame, the 
odor. It is a mockery, all that is reported of the influential 
Phoebus.* No true poem ever owed its birth to the sunS light. 
They are abstracted works, — 

" Things that were born when none but the still night 
And his dumb candle saw his pinching throes." 

Daylight may furnish the images, the crude material ; but for 
the fine shapings, the true turning and filing, they must be con- 
tent to hold their inspiration of the candle. The mild, internal 
light that reveals them, like fires on the domestic hearth, goes 
out in the sunshine. Night and silence call out the starry fan- 
cies. Milton's morning hymn, we would hold a good wager, 
was penned at midnight ; and Taylor's richer description of a 
sunrise smells decidedly of a taper. Even ourself, in these our 
humbler lucubrations, tune our best measured cadences, (prose 
has her cadences,) not unfrequently to the charm of the drowsy 
watchman, " blessing the doors," or the wild sweep of winds at 
midnight. Even now, a loftier speculation than we have yet 
attempted courts our endeavors. We would indite something 
about the solar system. Betty, bring the candles. 

* The Sun. 



362 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



The Patriot's Ambition. — Clay, 

I have been accused of ambition in presenting this measure. 
Ambition ! inordinate ambition ! If I had thought of myself 
only, I should have never brought it forward. I know well 
the penis to which I expose myself; the risk of alienating faith- 
ful and valued friends, with but little prospect of making new 
ones, if any new ones could compensate for the loss of those 
whom we have long tried and loved ; and the honest misconcep- 
tions both of friends and foes. Ambition ! If I had listened to 
its soft and seducing whispers, if I had yielded myself to the 
dictates of a cold, calculating, and prudential policy, I would 
have stood still and unmoved. I might even have silently gazed 
on the raging storm, enjoyed its loudest thunders, and left 
those who are charged with the care of the vessel of state to 
conduct it as they could. I have been heretofore often unjustly 
accused of ambition. Low, groveling souls, who are utterly 
incapable of elevating themselves to the higher and nobler duties 
of pure patriotism, — beings who, forever keeping their own self- 
ish aims in view, decide all public measures by their presumed 
influence on their aggrandizement, — judge me by the venal rule 
which they prescribe to themselves. 

I have given to the winds those false accusations, as I consign 
that which now impeaches my motives. I have no desire for 
office, not even the highest. The most exalted is but a prison, 
in which the incarcerated incumbent daily receives his cold, 
heartless visitants, marks his weary hours, and is cut off from 
the practical enjoyment of all the blessings of genuine freedom. 
1 am no candidate for any office in the gift of the people of these 
states, united or separated : I never wish, never expect to be. 
Pass this bill, tranquillize the country, restore confidence and 
affection in the Union, and I am willing to go home to Ashland, 
and renounce public service forever. I should there find, in its 
groves, under its shades, on its lawns, amidst my flocks and 
herds, in the bosom of my family, sincerity and truth, attach- 
ment, and fidelity, and gratitude, which I have not always found 
in the walks of public life. Yes, I have ambition ; but it is the 
ambition of being the humble instrument, in the hands of Provi- 
dence, to reconcile a divided people ; once more to revive con- 
cord and harmony in a distracted land ; the pleasing ambition of 
contemplating the glorious spectacle of a free, united, prosper- 
ous, and fraternal people. 



THE CONSEQUENCES OF DISUNION. 363 



The Consequences of Disunion.— Clay, 

South Carolina must perceive the embarrassments of her 
situation. She must be desirous — it is unnatural to suppose 
that she is not — to remain in the Union. What ! a state whose 
heroes in its gallant ancestry fought so many glorious battles 
along with those of the other states of this Union — a state with 
which this confederacy is linked by bonds of such a powerful 
character ! 

I have sometimes fancied what would be her condition if she 
goes out of this Union — if her five hundred thousand people 
should at once be thrown upon their own resources. She is out 
of the Union. What is the consequence ? She is an independ- 
ent power. What then does she do ? She must have armies 
and fleets, and an expensive government — have foreign mis- 
sions — she must raise taxes — enact this very tariff, which had 
driven her out of the Union, in order to enable her to raise 
money, and to sustain the attitude of an independent power. If 
she should have no force, no navy to protect her, she would be 
exposed to piratical incursions. Her neighbor, St. Domingo, 
might pour down a horde of pirates on her borders, and desolate 
her plantations. She must have her embassies ; therefore must 
she have a revenue. 

But I will not dwell on this topic any longer. I say it is 
utterly impossible that South Carolina ever desired, for a mo- 
ment, to become a separate and independent state. I would 
repeat that, under all the circumstances of the case, the condition 
of South Carolina is only one of the elements of a combination, 
the whole of which together constitutes a motive of action which 
renders it expedient to resort, during the present session of Con- 
gress, to some measure, in order to quiet and tranquilize the 
country. 

If therj be any who want civil war, who want to see the 
blood of any portion of our countrymen spilt, I am not one of 
them : I wish to see war of no kind ; but above all do I not desire to 
see a civil war. When war begins, whether civil or foreign, no 
human foresight is competent to foresee when, or how, or where 
it is to terminate. But when a civil war shall be lighted up in 
the bosom of our own happy land, and armies are marching, and 
commanders are winning their victories, and fleets are in motion 
on our coast, — tell me, if you can, tell me, if any human being 
can tell, its duratim God alone knows where such a wai 
will end. 



364 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 



Incidents of Travel,— Majob Jones. 

I'd hearn a grea- deal about steam ingins ; but if the Sem- 
mynole in gins is any uglier or frightfuler than they is, I don't 
wonder nobody wants to tack 'em. Why, sich other cog wheeis, 
cranks, and confinements I never did see ; and then they's so 
spiteful, and makes the fire fly so ! I couldn't help feelin sort o' 
skeered of it all the time, and I wouldn't been that feller what 
rid on top of the critter, and fed and watered it, not for no con- 
siderashun. I was lookin round it a little, to try to git the hang 
of it, when the feller just touched one of the fixins, and feugh-h-h ! 
it went right in my ear, and like to blowd my brains out with hot 
steam. " My eyes ! " ses I, " mister, what made it do that ? " 
1 O, it was jest blowin its nose," ses he ; and he tuck hold of 
another thing, and the infurnel critter set up a yell like a panther 
with a grindstone on his tale. Thunderation, how the steem did 
fly ! enufF to blow all creation to Ballyhack. " All aboard," ses 
the man ; the bell tapped, and in bout a minit every body was 
stowed away and waitin. Chug, went summing, and away I goes 
rite over the back of the seat — it jerked once more, and then it 
began to go. Chow, chow, chow — chew, chew, chew — che, 
che, chit-tu, chit-to, fit-te, fit, fit, fit, cher-r-r-r-r ; and the whole 
bilin of us was gwine a long with a perfect whiz ; and the way 
the fire flew was miracelus — grate big sparks now and then 
dodgin all round a feller's face like a yaller jacket, and then 
drappin rite down in his busum. For sum time it would tuck 
three men to watch the sparks of one, and they couldn't. 

Well, we went hummin along jest like iled thunder, makin 
more noise nor a dozen cotten gins all gwine at once, only stop- 
pin now and then to pile on lighterd and fill up the bilers, and to 
drap a feller here and thar on the rode. They was the sleepyest 
set of folks abroad that ever I did see. Thar they was, all 
scattered about in their seats, heads and heels together ; here a 
pair o' Loots stickin rite strate upwards, and thar a feller's face 
opened wide enuff to swaller a saw-mill. Some of 'em was mon- 
strous troubled in their dreams, and kept tossin and twistin about 
as bisy as bull yearlins in fly time, while some big-foot fellers 
lay sprawl'd out on the benches, quiet as midlin of meat, snorin 
a perfect harrycane. 

The fust thing I knowd I didn't know any thing m pertickler, 
cept that my eyes felt monstrous gritty when I tried to open 'en 
wide. 

Look here ; master — master ! " 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 365 

" Hello ! " ses I, " Jim, what's the matter ? " 

;t 1 isn't Jim, master," says the nigger feller what was shakin 
me by the coller ; " you better go to the hotel ; the passengers is 
all gone long time ago." 

I soon seed how it was, and not havin no baggage but just my 
saddle-bags, I tuck the road the feller pinted to. 

1 soon came to a place where there was nothin but wagons and 
a lot of fellers settin round a fire. 

" Whar's the hotel ? " ses I. 

" Thar ain't no hotel here," ses one feller, what was singin, — 

** Drive my wagon long the rode; 
Sorry team and heavy load." 

" Won't you take something ? " ses he, drawin a old junk bot- 
tle of rum, that smelled strong enufF of inyuns to knock a man 
down, and pintin it rite under my nose fore I know'd what he 
was bout. 

" No, I thank you," ses I ; " I's a Washingtonian." 

" Who's they ? " ses he ; " sum of your Flurnoy preachers, I 
spose ? " 

" No," ses I, " they's revolutioners." 

" Revolutioners ! " ses he ; " why, my father was a revolutioner, 
and fit against the British at King's Mounting, and helped to lick 
tyranny out of the country." 

" Well, that was right," ses I ; " hurra for the revolutioners ! 

" Come, take summing," ses he, and pinted the bottle at my 
nose agin. 

" No," ses I, " I'm a revolutioner, and go agin King Alkohol 
tooth and toe nail." 

" King who ? " ses he. 

u King Rum," ses I ; " that very tyrant that's got you by the 
guzzle now, and he'll have you choked down on yer knees to 
him fore a half hour if you don't revolutionize on him and quit 
him." 

The feller stopped and looked rite down in the fire — then at 
me — then at the bottle, and then he tuck another look at the 
fire. 

" That's a fact," ses he ; " it's had me on my back afore to- 
night ; but somehow I can't — yes, I kin — and here goes, mis- 
ter — hang all tyrants — I'm a revolutioner too, a Washington 
revolutioner, forever ! " and with that he throw'd the bottle of 
rum smack in the middle of the fire, and it blazed up blue and 
yaller like a hell broth, as it is. 



366 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Romeo's Description of an Apothecary. SKAxapEkKa 

I do remember an apothecary, — 
And hereabouts he dwelt, — whom late I noted 
In tattered weeds, with overwhelming brows, 
Culling of simples ; meager were his looks ; 
Sharp misery had worn him to the bone ; 
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, 
An alligator stuffed, and other skins 
Of ill-shaped fishes ; and about his shelves 
A beggarly account of empty boxes, 
Green earthen pots, bladders, musty seeds, 
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses, 
Were thinly scattered to make up a show. 
Noting his penury, to myself I said, 
" An if a man did need a poison now, 
Whose sale is present death in Mantua, 
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.** 



Account of a Bachelor,— Axom. 

(a parody on eomeo's apothboaby.) 

I do remember an old bachelor, — 
And hereabouts he dwells, — whom late I noted 
In suit of sables, with a care-worn brow: 
Conning his books ; and meager were his looks : 
Celibacy had worn him to the bone ; 
And in his silent parlor hung a coat, 
The which the moths had used not less than he. 
Four chairs, one table, and an old hair trunk 
Made up the furniture ; and on his shelves 
A grease-clad candlestick, a broken mug, 
Two tumblers, and a box of old cigars ; 
Remnants of volumes, once in some repute, 
Were thinly scattered round, to tell the eye 
Of prying stranger, This man had no wife. 
His tattered elbow gaped most piteously ; 
And ever, as he turned him round, his skin 
Did through his stockings peep upon the day. 
Noting his gloom, unto myself I said, 
" And if a man did covet single life, 



THE UNION. 367 

Reckless of joys that matrimony give, 
The sight of this most pitiable wight 
Would make him quick his aim give o'er, 
And seek forthwith a loving wife." 



The Union.— Clay. 

I do not desire to see the luster of one single star dimmed of 
that glorious confederacy which constitutes our political sun ; 
still less do I wish to see it blotted out, and its light obliterated 
forever. Has not the State of South Carolina been one of the 
members of this Union in " days that tried men's souls "? Have 
not her ancestors fought alongside our ancestors ? Have we 
not, conjointly, won together many a glorious battle ? If we had 
to go into a civil war with such a state, how would it terminate ? 
Whenever it should have terminated, what would be her condi- 
tion ? If she should ever return to the Union, what would be 
the condition of her feelings and affections ? what the state of 
the heart of her people? She has been with us before, when 
our ancestors mingled in the throng of battle ; and as I hope our 
posterity will mingle with hers, for ages and centuries to come, 
in the united defence of liberty, and for the honor and glory of 
the Union, I do not wish to see her degraded or defaced as a 
member of this confederacy. 

In conclusion, allow me to entreat and implore each individual 
member of this body to bring into the consideration of this meas- 
ure, which I have had the honor of proposing, the same love of 
country, which, if I know myself, has actuated me, and the same 
desire of restoring harmony to the Union which has prompted 
this effort. If we can forget for a moment — but that would be 
asking too much of human nature — if we could suppress, for 
one moment, party feelings and party causes — and, as I stand 
here before my God, I declare I have looked beyond these con- 
siderations, and regarded only the vast interests of this united 
people — I should hope, that under such feelings, and with such 
dispositions, we may advantageously proceed to the consideration 
of this bill, and heal, before they are yet bleeding, the wounds 
of our distracted country. 



368 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Taxation for War. — Calhoun. 

If taxes should become necessary, I do not hesitate to say the 
people will pay cheerfully. It is for their government and their 
cause, and would be their interest and duty to pay. But it may 
be, and, I believe, was said that the nation will not pay taxes, be< 
cause the rights violated are not worth defending ; or that the 
defense will cost more than the profit. 

Sir, I here enter my solemn protest against this low and " cal- 
culating avarice " entering this hall of legislation. It is only fit 
for shops and counting houses, and ought not to disgrace the seat 
of sovereignty by its squalid and vile appearance. Whenever it 
touches sovereign power, the nation is ruined. It is too short- 
sighted to defend itself. It is an unpromising spirit, always ready 
to yield a part to save the balance. It is too timid to have in 
itself the laws of self-preservation. It is never safe but under the 
shield of honor. Sir, I only know of one principle to make a 
nation great, to produce in this country not the form, but real 
spirit of union ; and that is, to protect every citizen in the lawful 
pursuit of his business. He will then feel that he is backed by 
the government ; that its arm is his arms, and will rejoice in its 
increased strength and prosperity. Protection and patriotism 
are reciprocal. This is the road that all great nations have trod. 
Sir, I am not versed in this calculating policy, and will not, there- 
fore, pretend to estimate in dollars and cents the value of national 
independence or national affection. I can not dare to measure in 
shillings and pence the misery, the stripes, and the slavery of our 
impressed seamen ; nor even to value our shipping, commercial, 
and agricultural losses under the orders in council and the Brit- 
ish system of blockade. I hope I have not condemned any pru- 
dent estimate of the means of a country, before it enters on a 
war. This is wisdom ; the other, folly. 



State Rights, — Calhoun. 

This bill proceeds on the ground that the entire sovereignty 
of this country belongs to the American people, as forming one 
great community, and regards the states as mere fractions or 
counties, and not as an irtegral part of the Union. It has been 
said that it declares war against South Carolina. No ! It decrees 
a massacre of her citizens ! War has something ennobling about 



EULOGY UPON JOHN C. CALHOUN. 3({J 

it, and, with all its horrors, brings into action the highest qualities, 
intellectual and moral. It was, perhaps, in the order of Provi« 
dence that it should be permitted for that very purpose. But 
this bill declares no war, except, indeed, it be that which savages 
wage — a war, not against the community, but the citizens of 
whom that community is composed. But I regard it as worse 
than savage warfare — as an attempt to take away life, under 
the color of law, without the trial by jury, or any other safe- 
guard which the constitution has thrown around the life of the 
citizen. It authorizes the president, or even his deputies, when 
they may suppose the law to be violated, without the intervention 
of a court or jury, to kill without mercy or discrimination. 

It has been said by the senator from Tennessee to be a meas- 
ure of peace. Yes, such peace as the wolf gives to the lamb, 
the kite to the dove ! Such peace as Russia gives to Poland, or 
death to its victim ! A peace by extinguishing the political ex- 
istence of the state, by awing her into an abandonment of the 
exercise of every power which constitutes her a sovereign com- 
munity ! It is to South Carolina a question of self-preservation ; 
and I proclaim it, that, should this bill pass, and an attempt be 
made to enforce it, it will be resisted, at every hazard, even that 
of death itself. Death is not the greatest calamity ; there are 
others still more terrible to the free and brave ; and among them 
may be placed the loss of liberty and honor. There are thou- 
sands of her brave sons, who, if need be, are prepared cheerfully 
to lay down their lives in defense of the state, and the great 
principles of constitutional liberty for which she is contending. 
God forbid that this should become necessary ! It never can be, 
unless this government is resolved to bring the question to ex- 
tremity ; when her gallant sons will stand prepared to perform 
the last duty — to die nobly. 



Eulogy upon John C. Calhoun, — Webstbb. 

Sir, the eloquence of Mr. Calhoun, or the manner of his ex- 
hibition of his sentiments in public bodies, was part of his intel- 
lectual character. It grew out of the qualities of his mind. It 
was plain, strong, terse, condensed, concise ; sometimes impas- 
sioned, still always severe. RejecLng ornament, not often seek- 
ing far for illustration, his power consisted in the plainness of 
his propositions, in the closeness of his logic, and in the earnest- 
aess and energy of his manner. These are the qualities, as ' 
24 



370 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

think, which have enabled him through such a iong course of 
years to speak often, and yet always command attention. His 
demeanor as a senator is known to us all — is appreciated, vener- 
ated by us all. No man was more respectful to others ; no man 
carried himself with greater decorum; no man with superior 
dignity. I think there is not one of us but felt, when he last ad- 
dressed us from his seat in the Senate, — his form still erect, with 
a voice by no means indicating such a degree of physical weak- 
ness as did, in fact, possess him, with clear tones, and an impres- 
sive, and, I may say, an imposing manner, — who did not feel that 
he might imagine that he saw before us a senator of Rome, when 
Rome survived. 

Mr. President, he had the basis, the indispensable basis, of 
all high character ; and that was, unspotted integrity, unim- 
peached honor and character. If he had aspirations, they were 
high, and honorable, and noble. There was nothing groveling, 
or low, or meanly selfish, that came near the head or the heart 
of Mr. Calhoun. Firm in his purpose, perfectly patriotic and 
honest, as I am sure he was, in the principles that he espoused, 
and in the measures that he defended, aside from that large re- 
gard for that species of distinction that conducted him to eminent 
stations for the benefit of the republic, I do not believe he had a 
selfish motive, or selfish feeling. 

However, sir, he may have differed from others of us in his 
political opinions, or his political principles, those principles and 
those opinions will now descend to posterity under the sanction 
of a great name. He has lived long enough, he has done 
enough, and he has done it so well, so successfully, so honor- 
ably, as to connect himself for all time with the records of his 
country. He is now an historical character. Those of us who 
have known him here will find that he has left upon our minds 
and our hearts a strong and lasting impression of his person, his 
character, and his public performances, which, while we live, 
will never be obliterated. We shall hereafter, I am sure, in- 
dulge in it as a grateful recollection that we have lived in his 
age, that we have been his contemporaries, that we have seen 
him, and heard him, and known him. We shall delight to speak 
of him to those who are rising up to fill our places. And, when 
the time shall come when we ourselves shall go, one after an 
other, in succession, to our graves, we shall carry with us a deep 
sense of his genius and character, his honor and integrity, his 
amiable deportment in private life, and the purity of his exalted 
patriotism. 



TO THE AMERICAN FLAG. 37, 



To the American Flag-. — J. R. Dbaxb. 

When freedom from her mountain height 
"Unfurled her standard to the air, 

She tore the azure robe of night, 
And set the stars of glory there ; 

She mingled with its gorgeous dyes 

The milky baldric of the skies, 

And striped its pure celestial white 

With streakings from the morning light , 

Then, from his mansion in the sun, 

She called her eagle-bearer down, 

And gave into his mighty hand 

The symbol of her chosen land. 

Flag of the free heart's only home, 

By angel hands to valor given, 
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 

And all thy hues were born in heaven , 
Forever float that standard sheet ! 

Where breathes the foe but falls before us ? 
With freedom's soil beneath our feet, 

And freedom's banner streaming o'er us. 

Flag of the brave, thy folds shall fly, 
The sign of hope and triumph high, 
When speaks the signal trumpet's tone, 
And the long line comes gleaming on : 
Ere yet the life blood, warm and wet, 
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet, 
Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn 
To where thy meteor glories burn, 
And as his springing steps advance, 
Catch war and vengeance from the glance. 
And when the cannon's mouthings loud 
Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud, 
And gory sabers rise and fall, 
Like shoots of flame on midnight pall, — 
There shall thy victor glances glow, 

And cowering foes shall fall beneath 
Each gallant arm that strikes below 

That lolV messenger of death. 



1172 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Flag of the seas ! on ocean's wave, 
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave ; 
When death, careering on the gale, 
Sweeps darkly round the swelling sail, 
And frightened waves rush wildly back 
Before the broadside's reeling rack, 
Each dying wanderer of the sea 
Shall look at once to heaven and thee, 
And smile to see thy splendors fly 
In triumph o'er his closing eye. 



Old Ironsides. — 0. w. Holmes. 

At, tear her tattered ensign down ! 

Long has it waved on high ; 
And many an eye has danced to see 

That banner in the sky ; 
Beneath it rung the battle shout, 

And burst the cannon's roar ; — 
The meteor of the ocean air 

Shall sweep the clouds no more. 

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, 

Where knelt the vanquished foe, 
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood 

And waves were white below, — 
No more shall feel the victor's tread, 

Or know the conquered knee ; — 
The harpies of the shore shall pluck 

The eagle of the sea ! 

O, better that her shattered hulk 

Should sink beneath the wave ; 
Her thunders shook the mighty deep, 

And there should be her grave : 
Nail to the mast her holy flag, 

Set every threadbare sail, 
And give her to the god of storms,— - 

The lightning and the gale ! 



DEMOSTHENES ON THE CROWN 373 

Demosthenes on the Crown. 

(EXORDIUM.) 

'« The greatest oration of the greatest of orators." 

Let me begin, men of Athens, by imploring, of all the 
heavenly powers, that the same kindly sentiments, which I have, 
throughout my public life, cherished toward this country and each 
one of you, may now by you be shown toward me in the present 
contest. In two respects my adversary plainly has the advan- 
tage of me. First, we have not the same interests at stake : it 
is by no means the same thing for me to forfeit your esteem, and 
for iEschines, an unprovoked volunteer, to fail in his impeach- 
ment. My other disadvantage is, the natural proneness of men 
to lend a pleased attention to invective and accusation, but to give 
little heed to him whose theme is his own vindication. To 
my adversary, therefore, falls the part which ministers to your 
gratification, while to me there is only left that which, I may 
almost say, is distasteful to all. And yet, if I do not speak of 
myself and my own conduct, I shall appear defenseless against 
his charges, and without proof that my honors were well earned. 
This, therefore, I must do ; but it shall be with moderation. And 
bear in mind that the blame of my dwelling on personal topics 
must justly rest upon him who has instituted this personal im- 
peachment. 

At least, my judges, you will admit that this question concerns 
me as much as Ctesiphon, and justifies on my part an equal 
anxiety. To be stripped of any possession, and more especially 
by an enemy, is grievous to bear ; but to be robbed of your 
confidence and esteem, — of all possessions the most precious, — 
is indeed intolerable. Such, then, being my stake in this cause, 
1 conjure you all to give ear .to my defense against these charges, 
with that impartiality which the laws enjoin — those laws first 
given by Solon, and which he fixed, not only by engraving them 
on brazen tables, but by the sanction of the oaths you take when 
sitting in judgment ; because he perceived that, the accuser being 
armed with the advantage of speaking first, the accused can 
have no chance of resisting his charges, unless you, his judges, 
keeping the oath sworn before heaven, shall receive with favor 
he defense which comes last, and, lending an equal ear to both 
parties, shall thus make up your minds upon the whole of the case. 

But, on this day, when I am about to render up an account, as 
it should seem, of my whole life, both public and private, I would 
again, as in the outset, implore the gods, and in your presence 



374 ROSS'S SPEAXER. 

pour out to them my supplications, — first, to grant me at your 
hands the same kindness, in this conflict, which I have ever borne 
toward our country and all of you ; and next, that they may 
iodine you all to pronounce upon this impeachment the decision 
which shall best consult the glory of the state, and the religious 
obligations of each individual judge. 



Public Spirit of the Athenians. 

Demosthenes on the Crown. 

The Athenians never were known to live contented m a slavish 
though secure obedience to unjust and arbitrary power. No. 
Our whole history is a series of gallant contests for preeminence : 
the whole period of our national existence hath been spent in 
braving dangers for the sake of glory and renown. And so 
highly do you esteem such conduct, as characteristic of the 
Athenian spirit, that those of your ancestors who were most emi- 
nent for it are ever the most favorite objects of your praise. 
And with reason ; for who can reflect, without astonishment, on 
the magnanimity of those men who resigned their lands, gave 
up their city, and embarked in their ships, rather than live at the 
bidding of a stranger ? The Athenians of that day looked out 
for no speaker, no general, to procure them a state of easy 
slavery. They had the spirit to reject even life, unless they were 
allowed to enjoy that life in freedom. For it was a principle 
fixed deeply in every breast, that man was not born to his parents 
only, but to his country. And mark the distinction. He who 
regards himself as born only to his parents waits in passive 
submission for the hour of his natural dissolution. He who 
considers that he is the child of his country, also, volunteers to 
meet death rather than behold that country reduced to vassalage, 
and thinks those insults and disgraces which he must endure \u 
a state enslaved much more terrible than death. 

Should I attempt to assert that it was I who inspired you with 
sentiments worthy of your ancestors, I should meet the jusl 
resentment of every hearer. No : it is my point to show that 
such sentiments are properly your own ; that they were the 
sentiments of my country long before my days. I claim but my 
share of merit in having acted on such principles in every part 
of my administration. He, then, who condemns every part of 
my administration, — he who directs you to treat me with se 
verity, as one who hath involved the state in terrors and dangers, 
— while he labors to deprive me of present honor, robs yvv of 



DEMOSTHENES NOT VANQUISHED BY PHILIP 375 

Jie applause of all posterity. For, if you now pronounce, that, 
as my public conduct hath not been right, Ctesiphon must stanc 
condemned, it must be thought that you yourselves have acted 
wrong, not that you owe your present state to the caprice of 
fortune. — But it can not be. No, my countrymen, it can not be 
that you have acted wrong in encountering danger bravely for 
the liberty and safety of all Greece. No : I swear it by the 
spirits of our sires, who rushed upon destruction at Marathon ! — 
by those who stood arrayed at Platrea ! — by those who fought 
the sea fight at Salamis ! — by the men of Artemisium ! — by 
the others, so many and so brave, who now rest in our public 
sepulchers ! — all of whom their country judged worthy of the 
same honor ; all, I say, iEschines ; not those only who prevailed, 
not those only who were victorious. And with reason. What 
was the part of gallant men they all performed ? Their success 
was such as the supreme Ruler of the world dispensed to each. 



Demosthenes not vanquished by Philip, 

Demosthenes on the Crown. 

A wicked thing, Athenians, a wicked thing is a calumniator, 
ever — querulous and industrious in seeking pretenses of com- 
plaint. But this creature is despicable by nature, and incapable 
of any trace of generous and noble deeds ; ape of a tragedian, 
third-rate actor, spurious orator! For what, iEschines, does 
your eloquence profit the country ? You now descant upon what 
is past and gone ; as if a physician, when called to patients in a 
sinking state, should give no advice, nor prescribe any course by 
which the disease might be cured, but, after one of them had 
died, and the last offices were performing to his remains, should 
follow him to the grave, and expound how the poor man never 
would have died, had such and such things only been done. 
Moon-stricken ! is it now that at length you too speak out ? 

As to the defeat, that incident in which you so exult, (wretch ! 
who should rather mourn for it,) — look through my whole con- 
duct, and you shall find nothing there that brought down this 
calamity on my country. Consider only, Athenians : never, 
from any embassy upon which you sent me, did I come off 
worsted by Philip's ambassadors ; not from Thessaly, not from 
Ambracia, not from Illyria, not from the Thracian kings, not 
from the Byzantians, nor from any other quarter whatever, — 
nor finally, of late, from Thebes. But wheresoever his nego- 
tiators were overcome in debate, thither Philip marched, and 



376 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

carried the day by his arms. Do you, then, exact this of me t 
and are you not ashamed, at the moment you are upbraiding me 
for weakness, to require that I should defy him single-handed, 
and by force of words alone ? For what other weapons had I ? 
Certainly not the lives of men, nor the fortune of warriors, nor the 
military operations of which you are so blundering as to demand 
an account at my hands. 

But, whatever a minister can be accountable for, make of that 
the strictest scrutiny, and I do not object. What, then, falls 
within this description ? To descry events in their first begin- 
nings, to cast his look forward, and to warn others of their 
approach. All this I have done. Then to confine within the 
narrowest bounds all delays, and backwardness, and ignorance, 
and contentiousness — faults which are inherent and unavoidable 
in all states ; and, on the other hand, to promote unanimity, and 
friendly dispositions, and zeal in the performance of public duty : 
and all these things I likewise did ; nor can any man point out 
any of them that, so far as depended on me, was left undone. 

If, then, it should be asked by what means Philip for the most 
part succeeded in his operations, every one would answer, " By 
his army, by his largesses, by corrupting those at the head of 
affairs. " Well, then, I neither had armies, nor did I command 
them ; and therefore the argument respecting military operations 
can not touch me. Nay, in so far as T was inaccessible to bribes, 
there I conquered Philip. For, as he who purchases any one 
overcomes him who has received the price and sold himself, so 
he who will not take the money, nor consent to be bribed, has 
conquered the bidder. Thus, as far as I am concerned, this 
country stands unconquered. 



Catiline denounced. — Cicero. 

[Cicero was born 106 B. C, *,wo hundred and sixteen years after the 
death of Demosthenes, and as an orator ranks next to Demosthenes. His 
orations against Catiline and Verres are masterpieces of denunciatory- 
eloquence.] 

How far, O Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience ? How 
long shalt thou baffle justice in thy mad career ? To what ex- 
treme wilt thou carry thy audacity ? Art thou nothing daunted 
by the nightly watch posted to secure the Palatium ? Nothing 
by the city guards ? Nothing by the rally of all good citizens ? 
Nothing by the assembling of the Senate in this fortified place ? 
Nothing by the averted looks of all here present ? Seest thtxj 



CATILINE DENOUNCED. 377 

not that all thy plots are exposed ? — that thy wretched conspiracy 
is laid bare to every man's knowledge here in the Senate ? — 
that we are well aware of thy proceedings of last night ; of the 
night before ; the place of meeting, the company convoked, the 
measures concerted ? Alas the times ! Alas the public morals ! 
The Senate understands all this. The consul sees it. Yet the 
traitor lives ! Lives ? Ay, truly, and confronts us here in 
council — takes part in our deliberations — and, with his meas- 
uring eye, marks out each man of us for slaughter ! And we, 
all this while, strenuous that we are, think we have amply dis- 
charged our duty to the state if we but shun this madman's sword 
and fury ! 

Long since, O Catiline, ought the consul to have ordered thee 
to execution, and brought upon thy own head the ruin thou hast 
been meditating against others. There was that virtue once in 
Rome, that a wicked citizen was held more execrable than the 
deadliest foe. We have a law still, Catiline, for thee. Think 
not that we are powerless, because forbearing. We have a 
decree, — though it rests among our archives like a sword in its 
scabbard, — a decree, by which thy life would be made to pay 
the forfeit of thy crimes. And, should I order thee to be instantly 
seized and put to death, 1 make just doubt whether all good men 
wouM not think it done rather too late than any man too cruelly. 
But, for good reasons, I will yet defer the blow long since 
deserved. Then will I doom thee, when no man is found so 
lost, so wicked, nay, so like thyself, but shall confess that it was 
justly dealt. While there is one man that dares defend thee, 
live. But thou shalt live so beset, so surrounded, so scrutinized 
by the vigilant guards that I have placed around thee, that thou 
shalt not stir a foot against the republic without my knowledge. 
There shall be eyes to detect thy slightest movement, and ears 
to catch thy wariest whisper, of which thou shalt not dream. 
The darkness of night shall not cover thy treason — the walls of 
privacy shall not stifle its voice. Baffled on all sides, thy most 
secret counsels clear as noonday, what canst thou now have in 
view ? Proceed, plot, conspire as thou wilt ; there is nothing 
you can contrive, nothing you can propose, nothing you can 
attempt, which I shall not know, hear, and promptly understand. 
Thou shalt soon be made aware that I am even more active in 
providing for the preservation of the state than thou in plo» ting 
its destruction. 



■ 



378 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Catiline expelled. — Cicero. 

At length Romans, we are rid of Catiline. We have driven 
nim forth, arunk with fury, breathing mischief, threatening to 
revisit us with fire and sword. He is gone ; he is fled ; he has 
escaped; he has broken away. No longer, within the very 
walls of the city, shall he plot her ruin. We have forced him 
from secret plots into open rebellion. The bad citizen is now 
the avowed traitor. His flight is the confession of his treason. 
Would that his attendants had not been so few. Be speedy, ye 
companions of his dissolute pleasures ; be speedy, and you may 
overtake him before night, on the Aurelian road. Let him not 
languish, deprived of your society. Haste to join the congenial 
crew that compose his army ; his army, I say, for who doubts 
that the army under Manlius expect Catiline for their leader ? 
And such an army ! Outcasts from honor, and fugitives from 
debt ; gamblers and felons ; miscreants, whose dreams are of 
rapine, murder, and conflagration. 

Against these gallant troops of your adversary, prepare, O 
Romans, your garrisons and armies ; and first to that maimed 
and battered gladiator oppose your consuls and generals ; next, 
against that miserable, outcast horde, lead forth the strength and 
flower of all Italy. On the one side chastity contends ; on the 
other wantonness ; here purity, there pollution ; here integrity, 
there treachery ; here piety, there profaneness ; here constancy, 
there rage ; here honesty, there baseness • here continence, there 
lust ; in short, equity, temperance, fortitude, prudence, struggle 
with iniquity, luxury, cowardice, rashness ; every virtue with 
every vice ; and, lastly, the contest lies between well-grounded 
hope and absolute despair. In such a conflict, were even human 
aid to fail, would not the immortal gods empower such conspic- 
uous virtue to triumph over such complicated vice ? 



Verres denounced. — Cicero 

An opinion has long prevailed, fathers, that, in public prosecu 
tions, men of wealth, however clearly convicted, are always safe. 
This opinion, so injurious to your order, so detrimental to the 
state, it is now in your power to refute. A man is on trial before 
you who is rich, and who hopes his riches will compass nis 
acquittal, but whose life and actions are his sufficient condeinna- 



VERRES DENOUNCED. 379 

tion in the eyes of all candid men. I speak of Caius Verres, 
who, if he now receive not the sentence his crimes deserve, it 
shall not be through the lack of a criminal, or of a prosecutor, but 
through the failure of the ministers of justice to do their duty. 
Passing over the shameful irregularities of his youth, what does 
the qusestorship of Verres exhibit but one continued scene of 
villainies ? The public treasure squandered, a consul stripped 
and betrayed, an army deserted and reduced to want, a province 
robbed, the civil and religious rights of a people trampled on ! 
But his prsetorship in Sicily has crowned his career of wicked- 
ness, and completed the lasting monument of his infamy. His 
decisions have violated all law, all precedent, all right. His ex- 
tortions from the industrious poor have been beyond computation. 
Our most faithful allies have been treated as enemies. Roman 
citizens have, like slaves, been put to death with tortures. Men 
the most worthy have been condemned and banished without a 
hearing, while the most atrocious criminals have, with money, 
purchased exemption from the punishment due to their guilt. 

I ask now, Verres, what have you to advance against these 
charges ? Art thou not the tyrant prsetor, who, at no greater 
distance than Sicily, within sight of the Italian coast, dared to 
put to an infamous death, on the cross, that ill-fated and innocent 
citizen, Publius Gavius Cosanus ? And what was his offense ? 
He had declared his intention of appealing to the justice of 
his country against your brutal persecutions. For this, when 
about to embark for home, he was seized, brought before you, 
charged with being a spy, scourged, and tortured. In vain did he 
exclaim, " I am a Roman citizen. I have served under Lucius 
Pretius, who is now at Panormus, and who will attest my inno 
cence." Deaf to all remonstrance, remorseless, thirsting foi 
innocent blood, you ordered the savage punishment to be inflicted. 
While the sacred words, " I am a Roman citizen," were on his 
lips, — words which, in the remotest regions, are a passport to 
protection, — you ordered him to death, to a death upon the 
cross. 

O liberty ! O sound once delightful to every Roman ear ! O 
sacred privilege of Roman citizenship ! — once sacred, now tram- 
pled on ! Is it come to this ? Shall an inferior magistrate, a 
governor, who holds his whole power of the Roman people, in a 
Roman province, within sight of Italy, bind, scourge, torture, and 
put to an infamous death a Roman citizen ? Shall neither the 
cries of innocence expiring in agony, the tears of pitying spec- 
tators, the majesty of the Roman commonwealth, nor the fear of 
fhe justice of his country, restrain the merciless monster, who, 



380 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

in the confidence of his riches, strikes at the very root of liberty, 
and sets mankind at defiance ? And shall this man escape ? 
Fathers, it must not be. It must not be, unless you would under- 
mine the very foundations of social safety, strangle justice, and 
call down anarchy, massacre, and ruin on the commonwealth. 



SoHloquy of Hamlefs Uncle.— Shaxspkab*. 

O, my offence is rank ; it smells to Heaven ; 

It hath the primal, eldest curse upon it. 

A brother's murder ! Pray 1 can not, 

Though inclination be as sharp as 'twill, 

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent ; 

And like a man to double business bound, 

I stand in pause where I shall first begin, 

And both neglect. What if this cursed hand 

Were thicker than itself with brother's blood ; 

Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens 

To wash it white as snow ? Whereto serves mercy 

But to confront the visage of offense ? 

And what's in prayer, but this twofold force, 

To be forestalled, ere we come to fall, 

Or pardoned being down ? — Then I'll look up ; 

My fault is past. But O, what form of prayer 

Can serve my turn ? " Forgive me my foul murder \ 

That can not be ; since I am still possessed 

Of those effects for which I did the murder — 

My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. 

May one be pardoned and retain the offense? 

In the corrupted currents of this world 

Offense's gilded hand may shove by justice ; 

And oft 'tis seen, the wicked prize itself 

Buys out the law : but 'tis not so above ; 

There, is no shuffling ; there, the action lies 

In his true nature , and we ourselves compelled, 

Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, 

To give in evidence. What then — what rests? 

Try what repentance can : what can it not ? 

Yet what can it, when one can not repent ? 

O, wretched state ! O, bosom, black as death ! 

O, limed soul ; that, struggling to be free, 

Art more engaged ! Help, angels, make assay ! 



THE ESSENCE BOY. 381 

Bow, stubborn knees ; and heart, with strings of steel, 
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe ! 
All may be well. 



— Shakspbabb. 

Let me play the fool ; 
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come. 
Why should a man, whose blood is within, 
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster ? 
Sleep when he wakes ? and creep into the jaundice 
By being peevish ? I tell thee what, Antonio, 
I love thee, and it is my love that speaks : 
There are a sort of men, whose visages 
Do cream and mantle like a standing pond ; 
And do a willful stillness entertain, 
With purpose to be dressed in an opinion 
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit ; 
As who should say, I" am Sir Oracle, 
And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark ! 
O, my Antonio, I do know of these, 
That therefore only are reputed wise, 
For saying nothing ; who, I am very sure, 
If they should speak, would almost damn those ears, 
Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools. 
I'll tell thee more of this another time ; 
But fish not with this melancholy bait, 
For this fool's gudgeon, this opinion. 



The Essence Boy, 

TMs may be spoken by a boy -with a basket on his arm containing vials.} 

Ladies, you could not do a kinder act than to lighten a poor 
lad's basket. I have been crying my essence since early dawn, 
but I have not had worse luck in a long time. I thought I 
should soon sell this one bottle of " patriotism," for I am sure a 
few drops would act as a charm at this time. It is a scarce 
article, and nearly out of the market. 

It is compounded from extracts of the " spirit of seventy-six,'' 



382 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

the oil of the " love of peace and good order," together with two 
other valuable extracts, viz., " do justice to all men," and " love 
your neighbor as yourself." 

But, ladies, stay a moment ; here is the very article for you. 
See how it sparkles. You may say of it, " How ruby bright." 
This is the essence of " matrimony " — a very harmless and 
delightful composition. Observe its crimson hue ; that is pro- 
duced by the extract of" modesty " with the tincture of" blushes." 
This essence also contains a mixture of " simplicity of manners " 
and " plain dealing," with a decoction from a simple sprig of 
" firmness." 

There are several other precious ingredients in this essence, 
and among them is the " spirit of meekness," " gentleness," and 
" forbearance," with some grains of " economy," " prudence," 
and " industry." This essence is sometimes adulterated with an 
extract of " bitter sweet." The genuine has on the seal a heart 
and an eye, with the word " fides." This is the veritable es- 
sence, as you see, and is sweetened with the honey of " recip- 
rocal affection." 

Here is an article of great value to the ladies. It is the 
essence of " beauty," distilled from the delicate and lovely plant 
known as a " meek and quiet spirit." I have been told by those 
who have long used it, that they are regardless of gray hairs 
and wrinkles, and seek no greater adornment for grace and 
beauty. 

I will also show the " art of pleasing," procured from an ex- 
tract of the " root of good will." Here is the essence of " pru- 
dence." It is distilled from the blossoms of the tree called 
" think before you act." This is very cooling, and keeps off all 
fevers of fretfulness and anger. A single drop taken daily 
strengthens the whole system. 

This is the essence of " industry." It contains a decoction 
from a native plant called " keep yourself busy," united with the 
oil of the " flowers of contentment." These two, the essence 
of " prudence " and the essence of " industry," are excellent 
articles to guard against the ills of life. Those who have made 
use of them say they operate admirably in preventing poverty 
bad habits, discontent, and many other evils. 



SCENE FROM SHAKSPEARE. 

Scene from Shakspeare, 

Quince, Bottom, Flute, Stabveling, and Sn*«. 

Quince, h all our company here ? 

Bottom. You had best call them, conjunctly and severally, 
generally and specially ; that is whereof to call them man by 
man, according to the scrip. 

Quin. Here is the scroll of every man's name in this town 
that is fit to be seen upon the stage before the duke and duchess. 

Bot. Good Peter Quince, go to work in a method. Begin 
at the top and go on to the bottom ; that is whereof, as a man 
may say, first tell us what the play treats of, then read the 
names of the actors ; and so your business will stand by itself, as 
regular as a building set upon the very pinnacle of its foun- 
dation. 

Quin. Why, then, the play is the most delectable and lament- 
able comedy, entitled and called " The cruel tragedy of the 
death of Pyramus and Thisby." 

Bot. A very moving play, I warrant it. A very deep trage- 
dy, I know by the sound of the title of it. Pyramus and Thisby ! 
I suppose they are to have their throats cut from ear to ear. 
Well, now, good Peter, call forth your actors by the scroll. 
Masters, spread yourselves out into a clump, every man con 
junctly by himself. 

Quin. Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, weaver. 

Bot. Ready ; name my part, and proceed. 

Quin. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. 

Bot. I am to play Pyramus. Well, and who is Pyramus ? 
A gentleman, or a simple man ? 

Quin. Pyramus is a lovyer, and Thisby is his sweetheart 
Pyramus kills himself for grief because a lion got hold of 
Thisby's cloak and tore it, which makes Pyramus conclude a? 
how he had torn her too, and eaten her up all but the cloak, 
whereof he had not touched her. So that poor Pyramus loses 
his life, d'ye see, for nothing at all ; whereof you know that it 
is enough to make a man hang himself. 

Box What, then, am I to hang myself for vexation because 
I had killed myself for nothing ? 

Quin. No, that is not in the play. 

Bot. Here will be salt tears wept, or I am mistaken ; and if 
I be the man that acts this same Pyramus, let the ladies look to 
their eyes. I will condole and congratulate to some tune. I 



334 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

will bieak every heart that is not double hooped with fliit. I 
have a main notion of acting your lovyer that is crossed in love. 
There is but one thing that is more to my humor than your 
tribulation lovyer; that is your tyrant — your thundering tyrant. 
I could play you, for example, I could play you such a tyrant as 
Ercles, when he gets on his brimstone shirt and is all on fire, as 
the unlucky boys burn a great rat alive with spirits. And then 
when he takes up little — what's his name? — to squir him off 
the cliff into the sea, O, then 'tis fine ! " I'll split 

" The raging rocks ; 
And shivering shocks, 
With thundering knocks, 
Shall break the locks 

Of prison gates. 
And Phibbus' car 
Shall shine from far, 
And kindle war 
"With many a scar, 
And make and mar 

The foolish fates." 

There is your right tragedy stuff. This is Ercles' vein to a 
hair ; this is your only true tyrant's vein. Your lovyer's vein is 
more upon the condoling and congratulating. Now, Peter Quince, 
name the rest of the players. 

Quin. Francis Flute, bellows mender. 

Flute. Here, Peter Quince. 

Quin. Francis, you must take Thisby on you. 

Flute. What, that is to be Nick Bottom's sweetheart, and to 
have my cloak worried alive by the great beast ? Why, Peter, 
I have a beard a-coming ? I shan't make a clever woman, as 
you may say, unless it were Mrs. What-d'ye-call-her — Mrs. 
Tibby's mother or aunt. Has not the gentlewoman of the play 
a mother or aunt that appears ? 

Quin. Yes ; but you must do Thisby. You will do Thisby 
well enough, man. You shall do it in a mask. Robin Starve- 
ling, tailor. 

Star. Here, Peter Quince. 

Quin. You must play Pyramus' father ; I will play Thisby 's 
father ; and Flute must play Thisby. Simon Snug, joiner. 

Snug. Here, Peter Quince. 

Quin. Simon, you must act the part of the lion. 

Snug. Heh ! the pa rt of the lion do you say, Peter Quince ? 
♦Vhy, I never made a beast of myself in my life, but now and 
♦hen when I had drunk a cup too much, 



SCENE FROM SHAKSPEARE. 3S5 

Quin. Pshaw ! pshaw ! a better man than you or I either has 
been ma ie a beast before now — ay, and a horned beast, too. 
But the ion is a royal beast, the king of beasts. So, Simon, 
you must play the part of the lion. 

Snug. Well, but an' it be a long part, 1 can't remember it, 
for I have but a poor brain of my own. Let me see how many 
pages. 

Quin. Why, Simon, it is not written ; and, for the matter of 
that, you may do it off hand. It is nothing but roaring. 

Bot. I'll tell you what, Peter Quince, you were better to let 
me act the part of the lion. Simon Snug is but a hen-nearted 
sort of a fellow. He won't roar you so loud as a mouse in the 
hole in the wall. But if you will let me play * he part, I will 
make such a noise as shall do any man's heart good to hear me. 
I will roar that the duke shall cry, " Encore, encore ; let him 
roar — once more, once more." 

Quin. But if you were too terrible, you might frighten the 
duchess and the ladies that they would shriek, and that were 
enough to hang us all. 

Bot. Ay, if the duchess and the ladies were frightened out 
of their wits, to be sure, perhaps, they might have no more wit 
than to get us all hanged. But do you think, Peter Quince, that 
I have no more inhumanity in my nature than to frighten people ? 
I would restrain and aggravate my voice that I would roar you 
as gentle as any sucking dove. I would roar you were it any 
nightingale. 

Quin. I tell you, Nick Bottom, hold your tongue with your 
roaring, and set your heart at rest. You shall play nothing but 
Pyramus. 

Bot. Well, if I must, I must. What can not be endured, 
you know, must be cured. But what beard were I best to play 
it in ? 

Quin. You must not have on a gray beard, you know, be- 
cause it will not look natural for a man with a gray beard to be 
acting the part of a lovyer. 

Bot. Why, look you, Master Peter Quince, I don't think it 
so very unnatural to see people with gray beards acting the part 
of lovyers ; at least I am sure it had not need be unnatural, for 
it is common enough. But, howsomever, it will look a little un- 
natural, as you say, to see the young woman, Mrs. Tibby, fon- 
dling and looking sweet upon a man with a gray beard. Where- 
fore, upon mature 'liberation, I will play it in a beard as black 
as jet. 

Quin Here then, masters, take your parts, and con them 
25 



386 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

over with as much re ention as you can, that you may be ready 

to rehearse by to-morrow night. 

Bot. But w here must we rehearse, Peter Quince ? 

Quin. Why, you know, if we should go to rehearse in a 
garret or a malt loft, we should but draw a mob, and perhaps 
get ourselves taken up for cromancers ; therefore we must go 
to the palace wood and do it by moonlight. Then, you know, 
we shall do it with dacity and imposure of mind, when there is 
nobody to deplaud or to hiss. 

Bot. Right, Peter Quince. We will be ready for you. 
{Exeunt.) 



Necessity of Education in a Republic. 

[Extract of an address delivered by Judge O. N. Ogden, of Alexandria, 
La., on the occasion of laying the corner stone of the " Louisiana State 
Seminary of Learning," 

The corner stone, which has been found by the square, plumb, 
and level to be " well formed, true, and trusty," is that of a 
monument dedicated, on this day, under the sanction and by the 
authority of the constitution and laws of the State of Louisiana, 
to the genius of enlightened liberty. It will stand here, in the 
midst of these primeval forests, where, at no remote period, the 
savage Indian kindled his camp fire, or the wild beast made his 
lair, a light and landmark of the era when the education of the 
children of the state was first recognized in Louisiana as a pub- 
lic duty, and provided for by the organic law. And surely no 
period in the history of our state was ever better entitled to be 
worthily commemorated. 

It is not commemorated by the classic chisel of the sculptor, 
nor illustrated by the painter's magic art ; not cut in marble, nor 
cast in bronze ; but it will have in this " Seminary of Learning " 
a fit testimonial and most becoming monument. Memnon's 
statue was said to breathe music when touched by the first rays 
of the morning sun. When this uprising structure, complete in 
its magnificent proportions, shall be devoted to its great purposes, 
the sun of science will evoke from it continually the eloquent 
music of Christian instruction. Filled with the youth of all por- 
tions of Louisiana, situated in a delightful and healthy region, 
and occupying a site very nearly in the exact geographical 
center of the state, how exceedingly bright is the promise of 
future usefulness from this institution ! 

Under other forms of government than ours, tne sJucetion of 



NECESSITY )F EDUCATION IN A REPUBLIC. 387 

the people, although an element of strength and greatness, (for 
knowledge is power every where and under all circumstances,) 
is not indispensable to the proper administration of the govern- 
ment, which is assigned to the privileged classes. It was said, 
in former times, that the monarchical form of government was 
the strongest, and the aristocratic the most enlightened. The 
fundamental principle, the essential element of both the strength 
and the enlightenment of our democratic system, — indeed, the 
indispensable condition of its maintenance, — is the education and 
the integrity of the people. 

Not with us is the king the state, but " we the people" 

" What constitutes a state ? 
Not high-raised battlement or labored mound, 

Thick wall or moated gate ; 
Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned ; 

Not bays, and broad- armed ports, 
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; 

Not starred and spangled courts, 
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. 

No ; men, high-minded men 
With powers as far above dull brutes embued, 

In forest brake or den, 
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude ; 

Men who their duties know, 
But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain, 

Prevent the long- aimed blow, 
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain, — 

These constitute a state; 
And sovereign law, that state's collected will, 

O'er thrones and globes elate, 
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill." 



The Same, concluded. 

Resiing directly, as our government does, on the people, 
belonging to them, and administered by themselves and for them- 
selves, the enlightenment of the masses is no longer a matter ol 
mere private concernment, but of general interest. The son of 
my neighbor may be called to-morrow, by the popular voice, to 
assist in framing and enacting those laws by which, in their 
equal and uniform operation, my rights of person and property, 
and yours, and those of all of us, are to be determined. It is 
then manifestly and directly to my interest that he should be 
well qualified to perform intelligently the high duties and impor- 
tant functions which may thus devolve upon him. 

It is certainly a noble, just, and true conception — that of the 



ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

duty of the government to instruct the children of the people. 
We have military and naval schools supported by government 
expenditure. Is it of more moment that the government should 
have an army and a navy for its protection, and should maintain 
them in efficient skill and discipline, than that the people by whom 
that government is administered, which the army and navy are 
designed to uphold, should be properly fitted for the important 
duties assigned them by the constitution and the laws ? 

The several professions are open only to those who are duly 
qualified for their exercise. Are statesmen and law makers 
born, as is said of poets ? The pilots and engineers who officiate 
on the high seas, and upon the thousand arteries of internal com- 
merce which course through our valleys, are required to be 
proficient in their respective arts. While thus particular and 
exacting as to these, are we to be careless as to the officers and 
crew of our goodly ship of state, in which the fortunes and the 
nopes of all of us are embarked ? and not our hopes only, but 
those of the votaries of freedom throughout the world, who are 
straining their eager eyes to see how she heads and how she 
rides the waves, fondly hoping that she will be the ark of their 
safety too. 

The corner stone of the great fabric of American free govern- 
ment is equality. We promulgated, in 1776, the dogma, that all 
men are created free and equal. We can not limit, and would 
not if we could, the exercise and enjoyment of political franchises 
and privileges to the educated classes ; but we can, and we 
ought to, diffuse throughout the whole social circle the light of 
education, so that there shall be no chamber or gallery, no 
nook or corner of our great common dwelling, — our country,— 
where Wisdom shall not hang her lamp to guide the feet of our 
children. 

" Were half the power that fills the world with terror, 
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, 
Given to redeem the human mind from error, 
There were no need of arsenals and forts." 



Ode to the South. — Mrss louisb Paob, 

The South ! the far South ! yes, the story-famed South ! 

O, the bright, sunny climate for me, 
Where the flowers in wildest luxuriance grow, 

And the mocking bird's carol is free ! 
There's a charm in the strain — I will sing it again : 

O, the bright sunny climate for me ! 



THE BEER TRIAL. 38S 

The South ! tne mild South ! 0, the genial South ! 

Where the winter makes transient its stay ; 
Where the wild peach and forest magnolia keep 

Their green vigils by night and by day, 
O'er the summer's repose, till it wake from its doze, 

And smile the cold shadows away. 

The South ! the warm South ! O, the bright, sunny South ! 

Where the soft, balmy breezes inspire 
On the pale cheek of invalid -languishing,health, 

And relight in the bosom its fire ! 
The weak spirit once more lightly bounds, as of yore, 

And its gloomy forebodings expire. 

The South ! the kind South ! the ingenuous South ! 

Where the stranger, from home far away, 
Finds a greeting of friendship confidingly true, 

And a thousand blest welcomes to stay. 
There's a witching, bright spell makes the lonely heart swell 

With a rapture both happy and gay. 

The South ! the famed South ! O, the bard-chanted South ! 

In my childhood's wee, roseate hours, 
I had fairy-bright visions — entrancingly bright — 

Of thy gardens and evergreen bowers. 
Now the day-dreams of yore mock my vision no more — 

I'm at home with thy breezes and flowers. 

The South ! the loved South ! Heaven smile on the South ! 

When I'm far, far away from thy clime, 
I'll be true to thy praises, unchangingly true, 

And I'll mention thy fortunes with mine 
To my Father above, at the throne of his love, 

When I pray for his blessings divine. 



The Beer Trial. — Tempekawce Dialogues. 

William. I saw you this morning, James, go into a shup 
where Albany cream ale was advertised, and buy a glass. ] 
iid not expect you would do that, as you belong to the Temper- 
ance Society. 



590 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

James. I'm none of your teetotalers, 1 tell you, William. I 
signed the ardent spirit pledge, and I'll stick to that, up to any 
of you. But I like good cider and ale. Mother says it purifies 
the blood ; and then it braces me up, and makes me feel so nice 
and strong here, {placing his hand on his stomach.) 

Will. You think it purifies the blood, — do you? Have you 
ever read the famous beer trial ? and do you know how your 
precious Albany cream ale is made ? If you have not, 1 can 
lend it to you ; the reading of it may make you think that 
there is something gets into the blood which might as well be 
kept out. 

James. Beer trial ? — what is that ? I never heard of it. 

Will. Why, the trial of Mr. Delavan, who was sued by the 
Albany brewers, who brew your favorite cream ale, for saying 
that they made it out of such filthy water that no dog nor horse 
would drink it ; water that was as thick as cream — the reason, 
T suppose, it is called cream ale. 

James. None of your talking so. 1 don't believe a word of 
t. I asked why they called it cream ale, and they said it was 
because the foam looked yellow, like cream. 

Will. I should think it would look green instead of yellow, 
for the top of the pond was green ; but there was enough in the 
pond under the green cover to give the yellow tinge. 

James. Now, William, 1 won't bear it. 1 say the ale is good 
ale. None of your nonsense. 

Will. Well, James, read for yourself. If you are pleased to 
drink beer made out of a pond which is the receptacle of the 
wash of slaughter houses and graveyards, and where are thrown 
all manner of dead beasts, you may. I say, — 

" Water, pure water, pure water for me." 

But every one to his liking ; as my Latin book says, De gustibus 
non disputandum. 

James. Well, William, if it is as you say, I'll drink no more 
cream ale. Let me see the trial. 

Will. Here it is. Read it through. But mind, now, don't 
take your hand off your stomach, for you will want something to 
brace you up, better than cream ale, before you get through. 



MY ATJNT. 391 



The Spirit of Human Liberty.— Wmaais*. 

The spirit of human liberty and of free government, nurtured 
and grown into strength and beauty in America, has stretched its 
course into the midst of the nations. Like an emanation from 
Heaven, it has gone forth, and it will not return void. It must 
change, it is fast changing, the face of the earth. Our great, 
our high duty, is to show, in our own examples, that this spirit is 
a spirit of health as well as a spirit of power ; that its benignity is 
as great as its strength ; that its efficiency to secure individual 
rights, social relations, and moral order, is equal to the irresis- 
tible force with which it prostrates principalities and powers. 
The world, at this moment, is regarding us with a willing, but 
something of a fearful admiration. Its deep and awful anxiety 
is to learn whether free states may be stable as well as free ; 
whether popular power may be trusted as well as feared ; in 
short, whether wise, regular, and virtuous self-government is a 
vision for the contemplation of theorists, or a truth, established, 
illustrated, and brought into practice, in the country of Wash- 
ington. 

For the earth which we inhabit, and the whole circie of the 
sun, for fcw the unborn races of mankind, we seem to hold in 
our hands, for their weal or woe, the fate of this experiment. If 
we fail, who shall venture the repetition ? If our example shall 
prove to be one, not of encouragement, but of terror, not fit to 
be imitated, but fit only to be shunned, where else shall the world 
iook for free models ? If this great western sun be struck out of 
the firmament, at what other fountain shall the lamp of liberty 
hereafter be lighted ? What other orb shall emit a ray to glim- 
mer, even, on the darkness of the world ? 



My Aunt* — O. W. Holmes. 

My aunt ! my dear unmarried aunt ! 

Long years have o'er her flown ; 
Yet still she strains the aching clasp 

That binds her virgin zone : 
I know it hurts her, though she looks 

As cheerful as she can ; 
Her waist is ampler than her life, 

For life is but a span. 



S92 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

My aunt ! my poor deluded aunt ! 

Her hair is almost gray : 
Why will she train that winter curl 

In such a spring-like way ? 
How can she lay her glasses down, 

And say she reads as well, 
When, through a double convex lens, 

She just makes out to spell ? 

Her father — grandpapa, forgive 

This erring lip its smiles — 
Vowed she would make the finest girl 

Within a hundred miles. 
He sent her to a stylish school, — 

'Twas in her thirteenth June, — 
And with her, as the rules required, 

" Two towels and a spoon." 

They braced my aunt against a board, 

To make her straight and tall ; 
They laced her up, they starved her down, 

To make her light and small ; 
They pinched her feet, they singed her hair! 

They screwed it up with pins; — 
O, never mortal suffered more 

In penance for her sins. 

So when my precious aunt was done, 

My grandsire brought her back, 
(By daylight, lest some rabid youth 

Might follow on the track.) 
" Ah," said my grandsire, as he shook 

Some powder in his pan, 
" What could this lovely creature do 

Against a desperate man ?" 

Alas ! nor chariot, nor barouche, 

Nor bandit cavalcade, 
Tore from the father's trembling arms 

His all-accomplished maid. 
For her how happy had it been ! 

And Heaven had spared to me 
To see one sad, ungathered rose 

On my ancestral tree 



OTJK COUNTRY'S ORIGIN. 393 



Our Country's Origin.— 

Our fathers came hither to a land from which they were 
never to return. Hither they had brought, and here they were to 
fix, their hopes, their attachments, and their objects. Some natural 
tears they shed, as they left the pleasant abodes of their fathers, 
and some emotions they suppressed, when the white cliffs of 
their native country, now seen for the last time, grew dim to 
their sight. 

A new existence awaited them here ; and when they saw these 
shores, rough, cold, barbarous, and barren, as then they were, 
they beheld their country. Before they reached the shore, they 
had established the elements of a social system, and at a much 
earlier period had settled their forms of religious worship. At 
the moment of their landing, therefore, they possessed institu- 
tions of government and institutions of religion. The morning 
that beamed on the first night of their repose saw the Pilgrims 
already established in their country. There were political insti- 
tutions, and civil liberty, and religious worship. Poetry has 
fancied nothing in the wanderings of heroes so distinct and char- 
acteristic. 

Here was man indeed unprotected, and unprovided for, on the 
shore of a rude and fearful wilderness ; but it was politic, intel- 
ligent, and educated man. Every thing was civilized but the 
physical world. Institutions containing in substance all that ages 
had done for human government were established in a forest. 
Cultivated mind was to act on uncultivated nature ; and, more 
than all, a government and a country were to commence with 
;he very first foundations laid under the divine light of the Chris- 
tian religion. Happy auspices of a happy futurity ! Who would 
wish that his country's existence had otherwise begun ? Who 
would desire the power of going back to the ages of fable ? Who 
would wish for an origin obscured in the darkness of antiquity ? 
Who would wish for other emblazoning of his country's heraldry, 
jr other ornaments of her genealogy, than to be able to say thai 
ner first existence was with intelligence ; her first breath the 
nspirations of liberty; her first principle the truth of divin 
religion ? 



ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



The Progress of Liberty, — Wsbstdl 

Mr President, the contest for ages has been to rescue liberty 
from the grasp of executive power. Whoever has engaged in 
her sacred cause, from the days of the downfall of those great 
aristocracies which had stood ' between the king and the people 
to the time of our own independence, has struggled for the 
accomplishment of that single object. On the long list of the 
champions of human freedom there is not one name dimmed by 
the reproach of advocating the extension of executive authority ; 
on the contrary, the uniform and steady purpose of all such 
champions has been to limit and restrain it. To this end, the 
spirit of liberty, growing more and more enlightened, and more 
and more vigorous from age to age, has been battering for cen- 
turies against the solid butments of the feudal system. To this 
end, all that could be gained from the imprudence, snatched 
from the weakness, or wrung from the necessities of crowned 
heads, has been carefully gathered up, secured, and hoarded as 
the rich treasures, the very jewels of liberty. 

To this end, popular and representative right has kept up its 
warfare against prerogative with various success ; sometimes 
writing the history of a whole age in blood ; sometimes witness- 
ing the martyrdom of Sydneys and Russells ; often baffled and 
repulsed, but still gaining, on the whole, and holding what it 
gained with a grasp which nothing but the complete extinction of 
its own being could compel it to relinquish. At length the great 
conquest over executive power, in the leading western states of 
Europe, has been accomplished. The feudal system, like other 
stupendous fabrics of past ages, is known only by the rubbish 
which it has left behind it. Crowned heads have been compelled 
to submit to the restraints of law, and the people, with that intel- 
ligence and that spirit which make their voice resistless, have 
been able to say to prerogative, " Thus far shalt thou come, and 
no farther." I need hardly say, sir, that into the full enjoyment 
of all which Europe has reached only through such slow and 
painful steps, we sprang at once, by the declaration of independ- 
ence, and by the establishment of free representative govern- 
ments ; governments borrowing more or less from the models of 
other free states, but strengthened, secured, improved in their 
symmetry, and deepened in their foundation, by those great men 
of our own country, whose names will be as familiar to future 
times as if they were written on the arch of the sky. 



THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. 3y5 



The Character of Washington.— Wbbbtbb. 

America has furnished to the world the character of Wash* 
ington. And if our American institutions had done nothing else, 
that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind. 
Washington! — "First in war, first in peace, and first in the 
hearts of his countrymen ! " — Washington is all our own ! The 
enthusiastic veneration and regard in which the people of the 
United States hold him prove them to be worthy of such a 
countryman ; while his reputation abroad reflects the highest 
honor on his country and its institutions. I would cheerfully put 
the question to-day to the intelligence of Europe and the world, 
what character of the century, upon the whole, stands out in the 
relief of history most pure, most respectable, most sublime ; and 
I doubt not, that, by a suffrage approaching to unanimity, the 
answer would be, Washington ! 

This structure,* by its uprightness, its solidity, its durability, is 
no unfit emblem of his character. His public virtues and public 
principles were as firm as the earth on which it stands ; his per- 
sonal motives as pure as the serene heaven in which its summit 
is lost. But, indeed, though a fit, it is an inadequate emblem. 
Towering high above the column which our hands have builded, 
beheld, not by the inhabitants of a single city, or a single state, 
ascends the colossal grandeur of his character, and his life. In 
all the constituents of the one, in all the acts of the other, in all 
its titles to immortal love, admiration, and renown, it is an 
American production. It is the embodiment and vindication of 
our Transatlantic liberty. Born upon our soil, of parents also 
born upon it ; never for a moment having had a sight of the old 
world ; instructed, according to the modes of his time, only in the 
spare, plain, but wholesome elementary knowledge which our 
institutions provide for the children of the people ; growing up 
beneath and penetrated by the genuine influences of American 
society ; growing up amidst our expanding, but not luxurious, 
civilization ; partaking in our great destiny of labor, our long 
contest with unreclaimed nature and uncivilized man, our agony 
o' glory, the war of independence, our great victory of peace, the 
formation of the Union, and the establishment of the constitution 
— he is all, all our own ! That crowded and glorious ife, — 

* Bunker Hill Monument 



396 HOSS'S SPEAKER. 

"Where multitudes of virtues pass a.ong, 
Each pressing foremost, in the mighty throng, 
Contending to be seen, then making room 
For greater multitudes that were to come," — 

that life was the life of an American citizen. 

I claim him for America. In all the perils, in every darkened 
moment of the state, in the midst of the reproaches of enemies 
and the misgiving of friends, I turn to that transcendent name for 
courage and for consolation. To him who denies, or doubts, 
whether our fervid liberty can be combined with law, with or- 
der, with the security of property, with the pursuit and advance- 
ment of happiness ; to him who denies that our institutions are 
capable of producing exaltation of soul, and the passion of true 
glory ; to him who denies that we have contributed any thing to 
the stock of great lessons and great examples, — to all these I 
renly by pointing to Washington ! 



The Responsibility of Americans.— Wbbbte*. 

This lovely land, this glorious liberty, these benign institu- 
tions, the dear purchase of our fathers, are ours — ours to enjoy, 
ours to preserve, ours to transmit. Generations past and gen- 
erations to come hold us responsible for this sacred trust. Our 
fathers from behind admonish us, with their anxious paternal 
voices ; posterity calls out to us from the bosom of the future ; 
the world turns hither its solicitous eye* , all, all conjure us to 
act wisely and faithfully in the relation v nch we sustain. We 
can never, indeed, pay the debt which is upon us ; but by virtue, 
by morality, by religion, by the cultivation of every good prin- 
ciple and every good habit, we may hope to enjoy the blessing 
through our day, and to leave it unimpaired to our children. 
Let us feel deeply how much of what we are, and of what we 
possess, we owe to this liberty and these institutions of govern- 
ment. Nature has, indeed, given us a soil which yields boun- 
teously to the hands of industry ; the mighty and fruitful ocean 
is before us, and the skies over our heads shed health and vigor. 
But what are lands, and seas, and skies, to civilized men, with- 
out society, without knowledge, without morals, without religious 
culture ? and how can these be enjoyed, in all their extent, aird 
all their excellence, but under the protection of wise institutions 
and a free government ? There is not one of us, there is noi 
one of us here present, who does not, at this moment, and at 



THE DEEP. 89*7 

every moment, experience in his own condition, and in the con 
dition of those most near and dear to him, the influence and the 
benefit of this liberty and these institutions. Let us then acknowl- 
edge the blessing ; let us feel it deeply and powerfully ; let us 
cherish a strong affection for it, and resolve to maintain and per- 
petuate it. The blood of our fathers — let it not have been shed 
in vain ; the great hope of posterity — let it not be blasted. 



The Deep. — Bbainabb. 

There's beauty m the deep : — 
The wave is bluer than the sky ; 
And though the light shine bright on high, 
More softlv do the sea-gems glow 
That sparkie in the depths below ; 
The rainbow's tints are only made 
When on the waters they are laid, 
And sun and moon most sweetly shine 
Upon the ocean's level brine. 

There's beauty in the deep. 

There's music in the deep : — 
H is not in the surf's rough roar, 
Nor in the whispering, shelly shore — 
They are but earthly sounds, that tell 
How little of the sea-nymph's shell, 
That sends its loud, clear note abroad, 
Or winds its softness through the flood, 
Echoes through groves with coral gay, 
And dies, on spongy banks, away. 

There's music in the deep. 

There's quiet m the deep : — 
Above, let tides and tempests rave 
And earth-born whirlwinds wake the wave 
Above, let care and fear contend 
With sin and sorrow to the end : 
Here, far beneath the tainted foam, 
That frets above our peaceful home, 
We dream in joy, and wake in love, 
Nor know the rage that yells above. 

There's quiet in the deep. 



39d KOobS SPEAKER. 



Patriotic Triumph. — Maxoy. 

The citizens of America celebrate that day which gave birth 
to their liberties. The recollection of this event, replete with 
consequences so beneficial to mankind, swells every heart with 
joy, and fills every tongue with praise. We celebrate not the 
sanguinary exploits of a tyrant to subjugate and enslave millions 
of his fellow-creatures we celebrate neither the birth nor the 
coronation of that phantcm styled a king ; but the resurrection of 
liberty, the emancipation of mankind, the regeneration of the 
world. These are the sources of our joy, these the causes of 
our triumph. We pay no homage at the tomb of kings, to sub- 
lime our feelings ; we trace no line of illustrious ancestors, to 
support our dignity; we recur to no usages sanctioned by the 
authority of the great, to protect our rejoicing; no, we love 
liberty, we glory in the rights of men, we glory in independence. 
On whatever part of God's creation a human form pines under 
chains, there Americans drop their tears. 

A dark cloud once shaded this beautiful quarter of the globe. 
Consternation for a while agitated the hearts of the inhabitants. 
War desolated our fields, and buried our vales in blood. But 
the dayspring from on high soon opened upon us its glittering 
portals. The angel of liberty, descending, dropped on Washing- 
ton's brow the wreath of victory, and stamped on Ame ican free- 
dom the s(:ai of omnipotence. The darkness is past, and the true 
light now shines, to enliven and rejoice mankind. We tread a 
new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness; and view a new 
heaven, flaming with inextinguishable staffs. Our feet will nc 
more descend into the vale of oppressions, our shoulders will no 
more bend under the weight of a foreign domination as cruel as it 
was unjust. Well may we rejoice at the return of this glorious 
anniversary ; a day dear to every American ; a day to be had 
.n everlasting remembrance ; a day whose light circulates oy 
through the hearts of all republicans, and terror thiough .he 
hearts of all tyrants. 



The Infant Orator. 

You'd scarce expect one of my age 
To speak in public on the stage ; 
And if I chance to fall below 
Demosthenes or Cicero, 



PARODY ON « THE DEEP." 

Don't view me with a critic's eye, 

But pass my imperfections by. 

Large streams from 1 ittle fountains flow ; 

Tall oaks from little acorns grow : 

And though I now am small and young, 

Of judgment weak, and feeble tongue, 

Yet all great learned men like me 

Once learned to read their A, B, C. 

But why may not Columbia's soil 

Rear men as great as Britain's isle, 

Exceed what Greece and Rome have done. 

Or any land beneath the sun ? 

Mayn't Louisiana boast as great 

As any other sister state ? 

Or where's the town, go far and near, 

That does not find a rival here ? 

Or where's the boy, but three feet high, 

Who's made improvements more than I ? 

These thoughts inspire my youthful mind 

To be the greatest of mankind — 

Great, not like Caesar, stained with blood ; 

But only great as I am good. 



Parody on the foregoing. 

You'd scarce expect a boy like me 
To get up here where all can see, 
And make a speech as well as those 
Who wear the largest kind of clothes. 
I think it was in olden time 
That some one said, in funny rhyme, 
" Tall aches from little toe-corns grow ; 
Large screams from little children flow." 
And if that rhymer told the truth, 
Though I am now a little youth, 
Perhaps I'll make as great a noise 
As some who are much larger boys. 
i will not speak of Greece and Rome, 
But tell you what I've learned at home, 
And what was taught me when at school, 
While sitting on a bench or stool : 



400 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

I've learned to talk, and read, and spell, 
And don't you think that's pretty well 
For such a little boy as I ? 
But I must leave you — so good by 



The Intemperate Husband. — Spraoub. 

It is, my friends, in the degradation of a husband by intern. 
perance, where she who has ventured every thing feels that all 
is lost. Who shall protect her when the husband of her choice 
insults and oppresses her ? What shall delight her, when she 
shrinks from the sight of his face and trembles at the sound of 
his voice ? The hearth is indeed dark that he has made deso- 
late. There, through the dull midnight hour, her griefs are 
whispered to herself; her bruised heart bleeds in secret. There, 
while the cruel author of her distress is drowned in distant rev- 
elry, she holds her solitary vigil, waiting yet dreading his return, 
that is only to wring from her by unkindness tears even more 
scalding than those she sheds over his transgression. 

To fling a deeper gloom across the present, memory turns 
back and broods upon the past. The joys of other days come 
over her, as if only to mock her grieved and weary spirit. She 
recalls the ardent lover, whose graces won her from the home 
of her infancy ; the enraptured father, who bent with such de- 
light over his new-born children ; and she asks if this can be the 
same — this sunken being, who has now nothing for her but the 
sot's disgusting brutality ; nothing for those abashed and trem- 
bling children but the sot's disgusting example. 

Can we wonder that, amid these agonizing moments, the tender 
cords of violated affection should snap asunder ? that the scorned 
and deserted wife should confess, " there is no killing like 
that which kills the heart ? " that though it would have been 
hard to kiss for the last time the cold lips of a dead husband, 
and lay his body forever in the dust, it is harder still to be- 
hold him so debasing life that even death would be greeted in 
mercy ? 

Had he died in the light of his goodness, bequeathing to his 
family the inheritance of an untarnished name and the example 
of virtues that should blossom for his sons and daughters from 
he tomb, though she would have wept bitterly indeed, the tears 
of grief would not have been also the tears of shame. She 
beholds him, fallen from the station he once adorned, degraded 



THE DRUNKARD'S DAUGHTER. 401 

from eminence to ignominy ; at home turning his dwelling to 
darkness and its holy endearments to mockery ; abroad, thnwt 
from the companionship of the worthy, a self-branded outlaw. 



The Drunkard's Daughter, — o. w. Bxhcoat 

Out in the street, with naked feet, 

I saw the drunkard's daughter ; 
Her tattered shawl was thin and small ; 

She little knew, for no one taught her. 

Her skin was fair, her auburn hair 
Was blown about her pretty forehead ; 

Her sad, white face wore sorrow's trace, 
And want and woe that were not borrowed. 

Heart-broken child, she seldom smiled ; 

Hope promised her no bright to-morrow ; 
Or if its light flashed on her night, 

Then came up darker clouds of sorrow. 

She softly said, "We have no bread, 
No wood to keep the fire burning." 

The child was ill ; the winds so chill, 
Her thin, cold blood to ice was turning. 

But men well fed and warmly clad, 
And ladies robed in richest fashion, 

Passed on the side, where no one cried 
To them for pity or compassion. 

That long night fled, and then the light 

Of rosy day, in beauty shining, 
Set dome, and spire, and roof on lire, 

And shone on one beyond repining. 

Asleep, alone, as cold as stone, 
Where no dear parent sought her, 

m winding sheet of snow and sleet 

Was found the drunkard's lifeless daughter 
26 



402 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Baneful Effects of Party Spirit* 

Rev. Wilbur Fisk, D. D. 

We see that man has a spirit which is not easily broken down 
by oppression. Let us inquire whether it can be more easily 
satisfied by indulgence. And in every step of this inquiry we 
shall find that no miser ever had gold enough, no office seeker 
ever yet had honor enough, no conqueror ever yet subdued 
kingdoms enough. When the rich man had filled his store- 
houses, he must pull down and build larger. When Caesar had 
conquered all his enemies, he must enslave his friends. When 
Bonaparte had become the Emperor of France, he aspired to the 
throne of all Europe. Facts, a thousand facts, in every age anc 
among all classes, prove that such is the ambitious nature of the 
soul, such the increasing compass of its vast desires, that the 
material universe, with all its vastness, richness, and variety, 
can not satisfy it. Nor is it in the power of the governments of 
this world, in their most perfect forms, so to interest the feelings, 
so to regulate the desires, so to restrain the passions, or so to 
divert, or charm, or chain the souls of a whole community, but 
that these latent and ungovernable fires will sooner or later 
burst out, and endanger the whole body politic. 

I know it has been supposed by the politicians, that in an 
intelligent and well-educated community a government might be 
so constituted, by a proper balance of power, by equal repre- 
sentation, and by leaving open the avenues to office and wealth 
for a fair and honorable competition among all classes, as to 
perpetuate the system to the latest posterity. Such a system of 
government, it is acknowledged, is the most likely to continue ; 
but all these political and literary helps, unaided by the kingdom 
of Christ, will not secure any community from revolution and 
ruin. And he knows but little of the nature of man who judges 
otherwise. What has been the fate of the ancient republics ? 
They have been dissolved by this same restless and disorgan- 
izing spirit of which we have been speaking. And do we not 
see the same dangerous spirit in our own comparatively happy 
and strongly constituted republic ? 

The wise framers of our excellent political institutions, like 
the eclectic philosophers, have selected the best parts out of all 
the systems which preceded them, and to these have added 
others, according to the suggestions of their own wisdom or the 
leadings of Providence, and have formed the whole into a con- 
stitution, the most perfect the world has ever witnessed. Here 



THE DESTINY OF AMERICA. 403 

every thing that is rational in political liberty is enjoyed ; here 
the most salatary checks and restraints that have yet been dis- 
covered are laid upon men in office. Here the road to honor 
and wealth is open to all ; and here is general intelligence. But 
here man is found to possess the same nature as elsewhere ; 
and the stirrings of his restless spirit have already disturbed the 
peace of society, and portend future convulsions. Party spirit is 
begotten ; ambitious views are engendered, and fed, and in- 
flamed ; many are running the race for office ; rivals are envied ; 
characters are aspersed ; animosities are enkindled ; and the 
whole community are disturbed by the electioneering contest. 

No meanness is foregone, no calumny is too glaring, no 
venality is too base, when the mind is inflamed with strong 
desire and elated with the hope of success in the pursuit of some 
favorite object ; and when the doubtful question is decided, it 
avails nothing. Disappointment sours the mind, and often pro- 
duces the most bitter enmity and the most settled and systematic 
opposition in the unsuccessful party ; while success but imper- 
fectly satisfies the mind of the more fortunate. And if no other 
influence come in to curb the turbulent spirits of men besides 
that which is found in our general intelligence and constitutional 
checks, probably, at no great distance of time, such convulsions 
may be witnessed in our now happy country as shall make the 
ears of him that heareth it tingle, and the eyes of him that seeth 
it weep blood. State may be arrayed againsi state, section 
against section, and party against party, till all the horrors of 
civil war may desolate our land. Are there no grounds for 
such fears. 



The Destiny of America, — Stoby. 

We stand the latest, and, if we fail, probably the last experi- 
ment of self-government by the people. We have begun it 
under circumstances of the most auspicious nature. We are in 
the vigor of youth. Our growth has never been checked by the 
oppressions of tyranny. Our constitutions have never been en- 
feebled by the vices or luxuries of the old world. Such as we 
are, we have been from the beginning — simple, hardy, intel- 
ligent, accustomed to self-government and self-respect. The 
Atlantic rolls between us and any formidable foe. 

Within our own territory, stretching through many degrees of 
latitude and longitude, we have the choice of many products and 
many means of independence. The government is mild. The 



404 ROSS'S SPEAKER,. 

press is free. Religion is free. Knowledge reaches, or may 
reach, every home. What fairer prospects of success could be 
presented ? What means more adequate to accomplish the sub- 
lime end ? What more is necessary than for the people to pre- 
serve what they themselves have created ? 

Already has the age caught the spirit of our institutions. I 
has already ascended the Andes, and snuffed the breezes of both 
oceans. It has infused itself into the life blood of Europe, and 
warmed the sunny plains of France and the lowlands of Holland. 
It has touched the philosophy of Germany and the north, and, 
moving onward to the south, has opened to Greece the lessons 
of her better days. 

Can it be that America, under such circumstances, can betray 
herself? that she is to be added to the catalogue of republics, 
the inscription upon whose ruins is, " They were, but they are 
not ? " Forbid it, my countrymen ; forbid it, Heaven. 



The Responsibilities of America. —Story. 

The old world has already revealed to us, in its unsealed 
books, the beginning and end of all its own marvelous struggles 
in the cause of liberty. Greece, lovely Greece, " the land of 
scholars and the nurse of arms," where sister republics in fair 
procession chanted the praises of liberty and the gods, — where 
and what is she ? For two thousand years the oppressor has 
bound her to the earth. Her arts are no more. The last sad 
relics of her temples are but the barracks of a ruthless soldiery ; 
the fragments of her columns and her palaces are in the dust, 
yet beautiful in ruin. She fell not when the mighty were upon 
her. Her sons were united at Thermopylae and Marathon ; and 
the tide of her triumph rolled back upon the Hellespont. She 
was conquered by her own factions. She fell by the hands of 
her own people. The man of Macedonia did not the work of 
destruction. It was already done by her own corruptions, 
banishments, and dissensions. 

Rome, republican Rome, whose eagles glanced in the rising 
and setting sun, — where and what is she? The Eternal City 
yet remains, proud even in her desolation, noble in her decline, 
venerable in the majesty of religion, and calm as in the com- 
posure of death. The malaria has but traveled in the paths 
worn by her destroyers. More than eighteen centuries have 
mourned over the loss of her empire. A mortal disease was 



ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. 405 

Upon her vitals before Caesar had crossed the Rubicon. The 
Goths, and Vandals, and Huns, the swarms of the north, com- 
pleted only what was already begun at home. Romans betrayed 
Rome. The legions were bought and sold, but the people 
offered the tribute money. 

When we reflect on what has been and is, how is it possible 
not to feel a profound sense of the responsibleness of this 
republic to all future ages ! What vast motives press upon us 
for lofty efforts ! What brilliant prospects invite our enthusiasm ! 
What solemn warnings at once demand our vigilance, and mod- 
erate our confidence ! 



Adams and Jefferson, — Eybkbtt. 

No, fellow-citizens, we dismiss not Adams and Jefferson to 
the chambers of forgetfulness and death. What we admired, 
and prized, and venerated in them can never die, nor, dying, be 
forgotten. I had almost said that they are now beginning to live — 
to live that life of unimpaired influence, of unclouded fame, of 
unmingled happiness, for which their talents and services were 
destined. They were of the select few, the least portion of 
whose life dwells in their physical existence ; whose hearts have 
watched while their senses slept ; whose souls have grown up into 
a higher being ; whose pleasure is to be useful ; whose wealth is 
an unblemished reputation ; who respire the breath of honorable 
fame ; who have deliberately and consciously put what is called 
life to hazard, that they may live in the hearts of those who 
come after. Such men do not, can not die. 

To be cold, and motionless, and breathless ; to feel not and speak 
not : this is not the end of existence to the men who have breathed 
their spirits into the institutions of their country, who have 
stamped their characters on the pillars of the age, who have 
poured their hearts' blood into the channels of the public pros- 
perity. Tell me, ye who tread the sods of yon sacred hight, 
is Warren dead? Can you not still see him, not pale and 
prostrate, the blood of his gallant heart pouring out jf his 
ghastly wound, but moving resplendent over the field ot honor 
with the rose of heaven upon his cheek, and the fire of liberty in 
his eye ? Tell me, ye who make your pious pilgrimage to the 
shades of Vernon, is Washington indeed shut up in that cold 
and narrow house ? That which made these men, and men 
fike these, can not die. The hand that traced the charter of 

6 



406 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

independence is indeed motionless, the eloquent lips that sustained 
it are hushed ; but the lofty spirits that conceived, resolved, 
matured, maintained it, and which alone, to such men, " make it 
life to live," these can not expire. 

" These shall resist the empire of decay, 
When time is o'er, and worlds have passed away : 
Cold in the dust the perished heart may lie, 
But that which warmed it once can never die." 



The Same, concluded. 

They have gone to the companions of their cares, of their 
toils. It is well with them. The treasures of America are now 
in heaven. How long the list of our good, and wise, and brave, 
assembled there ! How few remain with us ! There is our 
Washington ; and those who followed him in their country's con- 
fidence are now met together with him and all that illustrious 
company, 

The faithful marble may preserve their image ; the engraven 
brass may proclaim their worth ; but the humblest sod of inde- 
pendent America, with nothing but the dew-drops of the morning 
to gild it, is a prouder mausoleum than kings or conquerors can 
boast. The country is their monument. Its independence is 
their epitaph. 

But not to their country is their praise limited. The whole 
earth is the monument of illustrious men. Wherever an agonizing 
people shall perish, in a generous convulsion, for want of a valiant 
arm and a fearless heart, they will cry, in the last accents of 
despair, " O for a Washington, an Adams, a Jefferson ! " Wher- 
ever a regenerated nation, starting up in its might, shall burst the 
links of steel that enchain it, the praise of our fathers shall be 
the prelude of their triumphal song. 

The contemporary and successive generations of men will dis- 
appear. In the long lapse of ages, the tribes of America, like 
ihose of Greece and Rome, may pass away. The fabric of 
American freedom, like all things human, however firm and fair, 
may crumble into dust. But the cause in which these our fathers 
shone is immortal. They did that to which no age, no people 
of reasoning men, can be indifferent. 

Their eulogy will be uttered in other languages, when those 
we speak, like us who speak them, shall all be forgotten. And 



A MOTHER'S GIFT — THE BIBLE. 401 

when the great account of hume iity shall be closed at the throne 
of God, in the bright list of K * children, who best adorned and 
served it, shall be found the names of our Adams and oui 
TefTerson. 



A Mother's Gift — the Bible. — w. Famouiow. 

Remember, love, who gave thee this, 

When other days shall come, 
When she, who had thine earliest kiss 

Sleeps in her narrow home ; 
Remember, 'twas a mother gave 
The gift to one she'd die to save. 

That mother sought a pledge of love, 

The holiest, for her son ; 
And from the gifts of God above 

She chose a goodly one. 
She chose for her beloved boy 

The source of light, and life, and joy ; — 

And bade him keep the gift, that, when 

The parting hour should come, 
They might have hope to meet again, 

In an eternal home. 
She said his faith in this would be 
Sweet incense to her memory. 

And should the scoffer, in his pride. 

Laugh that fond faith to scorn, 
And bid him cast the pledge aside, 

That he from youth had borne, 
She bade him pause, and ask his breas: 
If she or he had loved him best. 

A parent's blessing on her son 

Goes with this holy thing ; 
The love that would retain the one 

Must to the other cling. 
Remember, 'tis no idle toy : 
A mother's gift, remember, boy. 



408 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



The Destiny of America. — g. s. Hilla&d. 

We may betray the trust reposed in us — we may most miser- 
ably defeat the fond hopes entertained of us. We may become 
the scorn of tyrants and the jest of slaves. From our fate 
oppression may assume a bolder front of insolence, and its vic- 
tims sink into a darker despair. 

In that event, how unspeakable will be our disgrace ! With 
what weight of mountains will the infamy lie upon our souls ! 
The gulf of our ruin will be as deep as the elevation we might 
have attained is high. How wilt thou fall from heaven, O Luci- 
fer, son of the morning ! Our beloved country with ashes for 
beauty ; the golden cord of our union broken ; its scattered frag- 
ments presenting every form of misrule, from the wildest anarchy 
to the most ruthless despotism ; our " soil drenched with fraternal 
blood ; " the life of man stripped of its grace and dignity ; the 
prizes of honor gone, and virtue divorced from half its encourage- 
ments and supports ; — these are gloomy pictures, which I would 
not invite your imaginations to dwell upon, but only to glance 
at, for the sake of the warning lessons we may draw from them. 

Remember that we can have none of those consolations which 
sustain the patriot who mourns over the undeserved misfortunes 
of his country. Our Rome can not fall and we be innocent. 
No conqueror will chain us to the car of his triumph ; no count- 
less swarm of Huns and Goths will bury the memorials and 
trophies of civilized life beneath a living tide of barbarism. 
Our own selfishness, our own neglect, our own passions, and our 
own vices will furnish the elements of our destruction. With our 
own hands we shall tear down the stately edifice of our glory. 
We shall die by self-inflicted wounds. 

But we will not talk of themes like these. We will not think 
of failure, dishonor, and despair. We will elevate our minds to 
the contemplation of our high duties, and the great trust com- 
mitted to us. We will resolve to lay the foundations of our 
prosperity on that rock of private virtue which can not be shaken 
until the laws of the moral world are reversed. From our own 
breasts shall flow the salient springs of national increase. Then 
our success, our happiness, our glory is inevitable. We may 
calmly smile at all the croakings of all the ravens, whether of 
native or foreign breed. 

The whole will not grow weak by the increase of its parts. 
Our growtn will be like that of the mountain oak, which strikes 
its roots more deeply into the soil, and clings to it with a closer 






THE DEVELOPMENT OF OUR COUNTRY. 409 

grasp as its lofty head is exalted and its broad arms stretched 
out. The loud burst of joy and gratitude which this, the anni 
versary of our independence, is breaking from the full hearts oi 
a mighty people, will never cease to be heard. No chasms of 
sullen silence will interrupt its course, no discordant notes of 
sectional madness mar the general harmony. Year after year 
will increase it, by tributes from now unpeopled solitudes. The 
farthest west shall hear it and rejoice ; the Oregon shall swell it 
with the voice of its waters ; the Rocky Mountains shall fling 
back the glad sound from their snowy crests. 



The Development of our Country, — Da. Hbwrt. 

It is but a few years since we entered upon the conquest of a 
country wilder than Germany in the days of Caesar, and ten 
times more extensive ; and yet in that short space we have 
reached a point of physical development which twenty centuries 
have not accomplished there. The forests have fallen down, the 
earth has been quarried, cities and towns have sprung up all over 
the immense extent of our land, thronged with life, and resound- 
ing with the multitudinous hum of traffic ; and from hundreds 
of ports the canvas of ten thousand sails whitens all the ocean 
and every sea, bearing the products of our soil and manufactures, 
and bringing back the wealth and luxuries of every quarter of 
the globe. Then, too, the tremendous agencies of nature — the 
awful forces evolved by chemical and dynamic science — have 
been subdued to man's dominion, and have become submissive 
ministers to his will, more prompt and more powerful than the old 
fab W genii of the Arabian tales. Little did our fathers, little did 
we ourselves, even the youngest of us, dream, in the days of our 
childhood, when we fed our wondering imaginations with the prod- 
igies wrought by those elemental spirits evoked by the talismanic 
seal of Solomon, that these were but faint foreshado wings of 
what our eyes should see in the familiar goings on of the every- 
day life around us. Yet so it truly is. 

Ha ! gentlemen, the steam engine is your true elemental spirit , 
it more than realizes the gorgeous ideas of the old Oriental 
imagination. That had its different orders of elemental spirits — 
genii of fire, of water, of earth, and of air, whose everlasting 
hostility could never be subdued to unity of purpose ; this com- 
bines the powers of all in one, and a child may control them. 
Across the ocean, along our coast, through the length of a hun- 



410 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

dred rivers, with the speed of wind, we plow our way against 
currents, wind, and tide ; while on iron roads, through the length 
and breadth of the land, innumerable trains, thronged with human 
life, and freighted with the wealth of the nation, are urging their 
way in every direction — flying through the valleys; thundering 
across the rivers ; panting up the sides or piercing through the 
hearts of the mountains, with the resistless force of lightning, 
and scarcely less swift. 

All this is wonderful. The old limitations to human endeavor 
seem to be broken through — the everlasting conditions of time 
and space seem to be annulled. Meanwhile the magnificent 
achievements of to-day lead but to grander projects for to-morrow. 
Success in the past serves but to enlarge the purposes of the 
future ; and the people are rushing onward in a career of physi- 
cal development to which no bounds can be assigned 



The Poet in the Clouds.— Colthliuqx, 

O, it is pleasant, with a heart at ease, 

Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, 
To make the shifting clouds be what you please, 

Or let the easily persuaded eyes 
Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mold 

Of a friend's fancy ; or with head bent low 
And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold, 

'Twixt crimson banks ; and then, a traveler, go 
From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land! 

Or, listening to the tide with closed sight, 
Be that blind bard, who, on the Chian strand, 

By those deep sounds possessed, with inward light 
Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey 
Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. 



Washington a Man of Genius. — Whipple. 

How many times have we been told that Washington was 
not a man of genius, but a person of excellent common sense, of 
admirable judgment, of rare virtues ! He had no genius, it 
seems. O, no ! genius, we must suppose, is the peculiar and 
shining attribute of some orator, whose tongue can spout patri- 



THE DEATH OP WASHINGTON. 41 1 

otic speeches, or some versifier, whose muse can Hail Columbia, 
but not of the man who supported states on his arm, and carried 
America in his brain. What is genius ? Is it worth any thing ? 
Is splendid folly the measure of its inspiration ? Is wisdom its 
base and summit — that which it recedes from, or tends toward? 
And by what definition do you award the name to the creator of 
an epic, and deny it to the creator of a country? On what 
principle is it to be lavished on him who sculptures in perishing 
marble the image of possible excellence, and withheld from him 
who built up in himself a transcendent character, indestructible 
as the obligations of duty, and beautiful as her rewards ? 

Indeed, if, by the genius of action, you mean will enlightened 
by intelligence, and intelligence energized by will ; if force and 
insight be its characteristics, and influence its test ; and if great 
effects suppose a cause proportionally great, a vital, causative 
mind, — then was Washington most assuredly a man of genius, 
and one whom no other American has equaled in the power of 
working morally and mentally on other minds. His genius was 
of a peculiar kind, the genius of character, of thought, and the 
objects of thought solidified and concentrated into active faculty. 
He belongs to that rare class of men — rare as Homers and 
Miltons, rare as Platos and Newtons — who have impressed their 
characters upon nations without pampering national vices. Such 
men have natures broad enough to include all the facts of a 
people's practical life, and deep enough to discern the spiritual 
laws which underlie, animate, and govern those facts. 



The Death of Washington. — Robbrt Tkbat Painb. 

Having accomplished the embassy of a benevolent Providence, 
Washington, the founder of one nation, the sublime instructor 
of all, took his flight to heaven ; not like Mahomet, for his 
memory is immortal without the fiction of a miracle ; not like 
Elijah, for recording time has not registered the man on whom 
his mantle should descend ; but in humble imitation of that 
omnipotent Architect, who returned from a created universe to 
contemplate from his throne the stupendous fabric he had erected. 

The august fern whose undaunted majesty could arrest the 
lightning, ere it fell on the bosom of his country, now sleeps in 
silent ruin, untenanted of its celestial essence. But the incor- 
ruptible example of his virtues shall survive, unimpaired by the 



412 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

corrosion of time, and acquire new vigor and influence from the 
crimes of ambition and the decay of empires. The invaluable 
valediction bequeathed to the people who inherited his affections is 
the effort of a mind whose powers, like those of prophecy, could 
overleap the tardy progress of human reason, and unfold truth 
without the labor of investigation. Impressed in indelible char- 
acters, this legacy of his intelligence will descend, unsullied as its 
purity, to the wonder and instruction of succeeding generations ; 
and should the mild philosophy of its maxims be ingrafted into the 
policy of nations, at no distant period will the departed hero, who 
now lives only in the spotless splendor of his own great actions, 
exist in the happiness and dignity of mankind. 

Tb^ sighs of contemporary gratitude have attended the sublime 
spirit to its paternal abode; and the prayers of meliorated pos- 
terity will ascend in glowing remembrance of their illustrious 
benefactor. The laurels that now droop as they shadow his tomb 
with monumental glory, will be watered by the tears of ages ; 
and, embalmed in the heart of an admiring world, the temple 
erected to his memory will be more glorious than the pyramids, 
and as eternal as his own imperishable virtues. 



The Light of Science.-*. D. 

O, let the light spread far and wide, 

Away o'er hill and vale ; 
O, let it be our nation's pride ; 

The star of science hail ! 
No longer pent in lordly hall, 

Among the favored few ; 
The boon of God — 'tis free to all, 

As drops the heavenly dew. 

Ten thousand, thousand lamps of mind, 

O'er wide creation spread, 
Have long in darkness been confined, 

Bedimmed by error dread. 
Then march we on with torch in hand 

And light them in a glow, 
Till science beam from every land, 

A firmament below. 



THE GOOD TIME COMING. 413 

Then radiant with eternal truth, 

The soul on earth shall shine, 
And early learn in infant youth 

The way to worlds divine. 
Then, teachers, rouse with cheerful zeal, 

And mold with skillful art ; 
Take Virtue's signet, — God's own seal, — 

Impress the youthful heart 




The Good Time coming. — J. B. Gougk, 

Of those who began the temperance reform, some are living 
to-day ; and I should like to stand now and see the mighty en- 
terprise as it rises before them. They worked hard ; they lifted 
the first turf, prepared the bed in which to lay the corner stone • 
they laid it amid persecution and storm ; they worked under the 
surface, and men almost forgot that there were busy hands lay- 
ing the solid foundation far down beneath. By and by they got 
the foundation above the surface, and then commenced another 
storm or persecution. Now we see the superstructure, pillar 
after pillar, tower after tower, column after column, with the 
capitals emblazoned — " Love, truth, sympathy, and good will to 
all men." Old men gaze upon it as it grows up before them. 
They will not live to see it completed, but they see in faith the 
crowning cope stone set upon it. Meek-eyed women weep as it 
grows in beauty ; children strew the pathway of the workmen 
with flowers. 

We do not see its beauty yet ; we do not see the magnificence 
of the superstructure yet, because it is in course of erection. Scaf- 
folding, ropes, ladders, workmen ascending and descending, mar 
the beauty of the building ; but, by and by, when the hosts who 
have labored shall come up over a thousand battle fields, waving 
with bright grain, never again to be crushed in the distillery ; 
through vineyards, under trellised vines with grapes hanging in 
all their purple glory, never again to be pressed into that which 
can debase and degrade mankind ; when they shall come through 
orchards, under trees hanging thick with golden, pulpy fruit, 
never to be turned into that which can injure and debase ; when 
they shall come up to the last distillery, and destroy it, to the last 
steam of liquid death, and dry it up ; to the last weeping wife, and 
wipe her tears gently away ; to the last little child, and lift him 
up to stand where God meant that mankind should stand ; to the 



414 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

last drunkard and nerve him to burst the burning fetters, and 
make a glorious accompaniment to the song of freedom by the 
clanking of his broken chains, — then, ah ! then will the cope 
stone be set upon it, the scaffolding will fall with a crash, and the 
building will stand in its wondrous beauty before an astonished 
world. 



The Warfare of Truth, -c. w. Upham. 

The awful and murderous operations of military power can 
only be justified when directed against a foreign invader, or 
domestic conspirators attempting to obtain possession of the gov- 
ernment by force of arms. Even in such cases they must be 
allowed to be in themselves great evils, and are only tolerated 
because necessary to put down still greater evils. They can not 
be rightfully employed as the means of enlarging the liberties, or 
reforming the abuses, of any nation or community. 

The horrors and cruelties of civil and intestine war, the blood- 
shed and the barbarism of the battle field, the furies and the 
crimes attendant upon massacre, conflagration, and pillage, can 
never be made to prepare the way for the blessings of liberty, 
peace, and equal rights, to enter and take up their abode in any 
land. They serve only to bind upon it still more firmly the bur- 
den and the woes of slavery and sin. " All they that take the 
sword," that is, select and adopt it as the means of improving 
their social or political condition, " shall perish with the sword." 
But truth is mighty, reason is mighty, conscience is mighty ; the 
spirit of human and of Christian benevolence is mightier than 
them all, and the most despised minority, the most trampled 
victims of oppression and slavery, if they make these the weapons 
of their warfare, and wield them in faith, patience, and persever- 
ance, will be sure to conquer, for God will be their ally. And 
the strongest and fiercest giant, who comes to the field with a 
spear, and with a sword, and with a shield, will be sure to fall be- 
fore the merest stripling who meets him in the name of the Lord. 



The Party Man. — Anon. 

The party man has associated his ambition, his interests, and 
his affections with a party. He prefers, doubtless, that his s*de 
should be victorious by the best means and under the champion 



THE PHILOSOPHER'S SCALES. 4 15 

ship of good men ; but rather than lose the victory, ne will con- 
sent to any means, and follow any man. Thus, with a general 
desire to be upright, the exigency of his party pushes constantly 
to dishonorable deeds. He gradually adopts two characters, a 
personal and a political character. All the requisitions of his 
conscience he obeys in his private character ; all the requisitions 
of his party he obeys in his political conduct. In one character 
he is a man of principle, in the other a man of mere expedients. 

As a man he means to be veracious, honest, moral ; as a poli- 
tician he is deceitful, cunning, unscrupulous, any thing for a 
party ; as a man he abhors the slimy demagogue ; as a politician 
he employs him as a scavenger ; as a man he shrinks from the 
flagiuousness of slander ; as a politician he permits it, smiles 
upon it in others, rejoices in the success gained by it ; as a man 
he respects no one who is rotten in heart ; as a politician no man 
through whom victory may be gained can be too bad ; as a citi- 
zen he is an apostle of temperance ; as a politician he puts his 
shoulder under the men who deluge their track with whiskey, 
marching a crew of brawling patriots too pugnaciously drunk to 
exercise the freeman's noblest franchise — the vote. 

As a citizen he is considerate of the young, and counsels them 
with admirable wisdom ; then, as a politician, he votes for tools, 
supporting for th^ magistracy worshipful aspirants, scraped from 
tiie ditch, the grog shop, and the brothel. Thus saying by deeds 
which the young are quick to understand, " I jested when I warned 
you of bad company, for you perceive none worse than those 
whom I delight to honor." For his religion he will give up all 
his secular interest, but for his politics he gives up even his re- 
ligion. He adores virtue and rewards vice. Whilst bolstering 
up unrighteous measures and more unrighteous men, he prays for 
the advancement of religion, and justice, and honor. I would to 
God that his prayers might be answered upon his own political 
head, for never was there a place where such blessings were 
more needed. I am puzzled to know what will happen at death 
to this public Christian, but most unchristian politician. 



The Philosopher's Scales. — Jane Taylor. 

A monk, when his rites sacerdotal were o'er, 

In the depth of his cell with his stone-covered floor, 

Resigning to thought his chimerical brain. 

Once formed the contrivance we now shall explain ; 



416 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

But whether by magic's or alchemy's powers, 
We know not ; indeed, 'tis no business of ours. 

Perhaps it was only by patience and care, 

At last, that he brought his invention to bear ; 

In youth 'twas projected, but years stole away, 

And ere 'twas complete, he was wrinkled and gray ; 

But success is secure, unless energy fails ; 

And, at length, he produced the philosopher's scales. 

" What were they ?" you ask , you shall presently see 
These scales were not made to weigh sugar and tea ; 
O, no ; for such properties wondrous had they, 
That qualities, feelings, and thoughts they could weigh 
Together with articles small or immense, 
From mountains or planets to atoms of sense. 

Nought was there so bulky but there it would lay, 
And nought so ethereal but there it would stay, 
And nought so reluctant but in it must go ; 
And which some examples more clearly will show. 

The first thing he weighed was the head of Voltaire, 
Which retained all the wit that had ever been there ; 
As a weight, he threw in a torn scrap of a leaf 
Containing the prayer of the penitent thief ; 
When the skull rose aloft with so sudden a spell, 
That it bounced like a ball on the roof of the cell. 

One time he put in Alexander the Great, 
With a garment that Dorcas had made, for a weight, 
And, though clad in armor from sandals to crown, 
The hero rose up, and the garment went down. 

A long row of almshouses, amply endowed 

By a well-esteemed Pharisee, busy and proud, 

Next loaded one scale ; while the other was prest 

By those mites the poor widow dropped into the chest ; 

Up flew the endowment, not weighing an ounce, 

And down, down the farthing- worth came with a bounce 

By further experiments, (no matter how,) 

He found that ten chariots weighed less than one plow ; 



OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 41' 

A sword with gilt trapping rose up in the scale, 
Though balanced by only a ten-penny nail ; 
A shield and a helmet, a buckler and spear, 
Weighed less than a widow's uncrystallized tear. 

A lord and a lady went up at full sail, 

When a bee chanced to light on the opposite scale ; 

Ten doctors, ten lawyers, two courtiers, one earl, 

Ten counselors' wigs, full of powder and curl, 

All heaped in one balance and swinging from thence, 

Weighed less than a few grains of candor and sense;— 

A first water diamond, with brilliants begirt, 
Than one good potato, just washed from the dirt : 
Yet not mountains of silver and gold could suffice 
One pearl to outweigh — 'twas the pearl of great price. 

Last of all, the whole world was bowled in at the grate 
With the soul of a beggar to serve for a weight, 
When the former sprang up with so strong a rebuff, 
That it made a vast rent and escaped at the roof; 
When, balanced in air, it ascended on high, 
And sailed up aloft, a balloon in the sky ; 
While the scale with the soul in't so mightily fell, 
That it jerked the philosopher out of his cell. 



Observance of the Sabbath,— Db. Spuing* 

The Sabbath lies at the foundation of all true morality. Mo- 
rality flows from principle. Let the principles of moral obliga- 
tion become relaxed, and the practice of morality will not long 
survive the overthrow. No man can preserve his own morals, 
no parent can preserve the morals of his children, without the 
impressions of religious obligation. 

If you can induce a community to doubt the genuineness and 
authenticity of the Scriptures ; to question the reality and obliga- 
tions of religion ; to hesitate, undeciding, whether there be any 
such thing as virtue or vice ; whether there be an eternal state 
of retribution beyond the grave ; or whether there exists any 
such being as God, — you have broken down the barriers of moral 
virtue, and hoisted the flood gates of immorality and crime. 1 
need not say that, when a people have once done this, they can 
27 



418 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

no longer exist as a tranquil and happy people. Every bond 

that holds society together would be ruptured ; fraud and treach- 
ery would take the place of confidence between man and man ; 
the tribunals of justice would be scenes of bribery and injustice ; 
avarice, perjury, ambition, and revenge would walk through the 
land, and render it more like the dwelling of savage beasts than 
the tranquil abode of civilized and Christianized men. 

If there is an institution which opposes itself to this progress 
of human degeneracy, and throws a shield before the interests 
of moral virtue, in our thoughtless and wayward world, it is the 
Sabbath. In the fearful struggle between virtue and vice, not- 
withstanding the powerful auxiliaries which wickedness finds in 
the bosoms of men, and in the seductions and influence of popular 
example, wherever the Sabbath has been suffered to live, the 
trembling interests of moral virtue have always been revered and 
sustained. One of the principal occupations of this day is to 
Hlustrate and enforce the great principles of sound morality. 
Where this sacred trust is preserved inviolate, you behold a na- 
tion convened one day in seven, for the purpose of acquainting 
themselves with the best moral principles and precepts. And it 
can not be otherwise than that the authority of moral virtue, 
under such auspices, should be acknowledged and felt. 

We may not, at once, perceive the effects which this weekly 
observance produces. Like most moral causes, it operates slow- 
ly ; but it operates surely, and gradually weakens the power, 
and breaks the yoke of profligacy and sin. No villain regards 
the Sabbath. No vicious family regards the Sabbath. No im- 
moral community regard the Sabbath. The holy rest of this 
ever-memorable day is a barrier which is always broken down 
before men become giants in sin. Blackstone, in his Commen- 
taries on the Laws of England, remarks, that 4l a corruption of 
morals usually follows a profanation of the Sabbath." It is an 
observation of Lord Chief Justice Hale, that " of all the persons 
who were convicted of capital crimes while he was upon the 
bench, he found a few only who would not confess that they be- 
gan their career of wickedness by a neglect of the duties of the 
Sabbath, and vicious conduct on that day." 

The prisons in our own land could probably tell us, that they 
have scarcely a solitary tenant who had not broken over the 
restraints of the Sabbath before he was abandoned to crime. 
You may enact laws for the suppression of immorality ; but the 
secret and silent, power of the Sabbath constitutes a stronger 
shield to the vital interests of the community, than any code of 
penal statutes that ever was enacted. The Sabbafh is the key- 



WOLSEY'S ADDRESS TO CROMWELL. 419 

stone of the arch which sustains the temple of virtue, which, 
however defaced, will survive many a rude shock, so long as 
the foundation remains firm. 



Cardinal Wolsetfs Address to Cromwell 

Shakspbabb. 

Chomwell, I did not think to shed a tear 

In all my miseries ; but thou hast forced me, 

Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman. 

Let's dry our eyes, and thus far hear me, Cromwell ; 

And when I am forgotten, as I shall be, 

And sleep in dull, cold marble, where no mention 

Of me more must be heard of, say I taught thee — 

Say, Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory, 

And sounded all the depths and shoals of honor, 

Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in ; 

A sure and safe one — though thy master missed it 

Mark but my fall, and that that ruined me. 

Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition : 

By that sin fell the angels ; how can man, then, 

The image of his Maker, hope to win by't ? 

Love thyself last ; cherish those hearts that hate thee : 

Corruption wins not more than honesty. 

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, 

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not. 

Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 

Thy God's, and truth's : then, if thou fall'st, O CromweD 

Thou fall'st a blessed martyr. Serve the king ; 

And — Pr'ythee, lead me in : 

There take an inventory of all I have, 

To the last penny — 'tis the king's. My robe, 

And my integrity to Heaven, is all 

I dare now call my own. O Cromwell, Cromwell, 

Had I but served my God with half the zeal 

I served my king, he would not, in mine age, 

Have left me naked to mine enemies. 



420 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Soliloquy of Henry iT.— Seaksfbam. 

O Sleep, gentle Sleep, 
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, 
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, 
And steep my senses in forgetfulness ? 
Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, 
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, 
And hushed with buzzing night flies to thy slumber, 
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, 
Under the canopies of costly state, 
And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody ? 
O thou dull god ! why liest thou with the vile, 
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch, 
A watch case to a common 'larum bell ? 
Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast, 
Seal up the ship boy's eyes, and rock his brains 
In cradle of the rude, imperious surge ; 
And, in the visitation of the winds, 
Who take the ruffian billows by the top, 
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them 
With deafening clamors in the slippery shrouds, 
That, with the hurly, Death itself awakes ? — 
Canst thou, O partial Sleep ! give thy repose 
To the wet sea boy, in an hour so rude, 
And in the calmest and the stillest night, 
With all appliances and means to boot, 
Deny it to a king ? Then, happy, lowly clown I 
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown 



Sabbath Morning. — N. Y. Paper. 

It is the Sabbath morn ! A mild, genial sky, breathing the 
ineffable delights of spring, arches overhead ; the sunshine, as 
yet wan and pallid, like the smile of a convalescent patient, not 
yet ripened into the warm, fervid glory of summer days, streams 
through the hazy atmosphere : all is calm and peaceful, and 
amidst the general repose comes the first heavy stroke of the 
quiet church bell, sending its quivering vibrations through the 
air. A moment's pause, and now another bell responds , and 
hark ! another and another ; and so the peal goes on from stee 



SABBATH MORNING. 42} 

pie to steeple, weaving an airy chain of music over the whole 
The belfry pigeons, startled from their nodding slumbers, soar 
away from the concussions of the air, but not in terror. They 
perch upon neighboring eaves and ridge poles, cooing ano 
pluming themselves, perfectly secure in the universal armistice 
The musical clangor continues, swelling to a grand orchestral 
diapason. Seaward it floats from the great commercial city, 
scattering a holy influence upon its path. 

The helmsman hears it as he stands at the wheel of the home- 
ward bound bark gliding up the bay, past the frowning batteries 
of the Castle, and threading its way among the island gems of 
the harbor. The bell music, softened by distance to the gentle 
breathings of an iEolian harp, touches his heartstrings, and warms 
to life the best thoughts of his nature. Mingled with the pleasant 
anticipations of meeting near and dear ones are silent thanskgiv- 
ings to the Power which has preserved him in the midst of the 
perils of the stormy deep. As he approaches the welcome pier, 
his moistened eye seeks, above the tracery of masts and flutter 
ing signals, the blue flag of the Bethel — the sign of salvation to 
the mariner on shore. And now all is silent ; the tolling of the 
bell has ceased — the noise of footsteps on the sidewalks is 
hushed, for all are gathered in their respective houses of wor- 
ship, listening to the voice of prayer and exhortation. For a 
space the minds of men are estranged from the toils, and strifes 
and bitter cares, and biting enmities of this existence, and follow- 
ing the pathway of light to the happier and better life. But 
westward, pursuing the course of the sun, rolls the tide of sacred 
music, making the circuit of the land. It pours through the 
gorges of the mountains, waking remote villages with its glaa 
tidings westward still. 

In the remote frontier settlement, the hardy pioneers and their 
families hasten to the first raised house at the summons of its 
little bell — a place of worship almost as rude as that where the 
wondrous life of the Savior of the race began. There, where of 
late rang the whoop of the savage, or the cry of the wild beast, 
rise their forest hymns of praise. A few years hence, ere the 
dark curls of those manly foresters are flecked with silver, or 
their stalwart forms bowed by the hand of age, some consecrated 
pile, rich in ornamentation, will raise its stately spire in the midst 
of a great city ; but its Gothic roof will shield no worshipers 
more sincere than those who gather together in the wilderness. 
Still in the pathway of the sun dawns the sacred day on the 
golden shores of the Pacific, gleams along its glittering waters, 
and breaks upon the summer isles of the deep, whe/e years 



422 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

before the self-sacrificing missionary first set up the standard of 
salvation. 

What were poor, toiling, suffering humanity without this day ? 
What would be the condition of our physical and spiritual 
natures if there were no rest here, to give us a foretaste of 
" that peace which the world can not give " ? The mind shrinks 
from a contemplation of that condition of things which would 
follow a suppression of the Sabbath, with its sacred observances 
and duties, and shudders at the shadowy images of desolation the 
mere thought of it conjures up. 



A Specimen of Pulpit Eloquence. — Bridainb, 

At the sight of an auditory so new to me, methinks, my 
brethren, I ought only to open my mouth to solicit your favor 
in behalf of a poor missionary, destitute of all those talents 
which you require of those who speak to you about your salva- 
tion. Nevertheless, I experience to-day a feeling very different. 
And, if I am cast down, suspect me not of being depressed 
by the wretched uneasiness occasioned by vanity, as if I were 
accustomed to preach myself. God forbid that a minister of 
Heaven should ever suppose he needed an excuse with you ! for, 
whoever ye may be, ye are all of you sinners like myself. It is 
before your God and mine that I feel myself impelled at this 
moment to strike my breast. 

Until now I have proclaimed the righteousness of the Mos 1 
High in churches covered with thatch. I have preached the 
rigors of penance to the unfortunate who wanted bread. I have 
declared to the good inhabitants of the country the most awful 
truths of my religion. Unhappy man ! what have I done ? I 
have made sad the poor, the best friends of my God. I have 
conveyed terror and grief into those simple and honest souls, 
whom I ought to have pitied and consoled. It is here only 
where I behold the great, the rich, the oppressors of suffering 
humanity, or sinners daring and hardened. Ah, it is here only 
where the sacred word should be made to resound with all the 
force of its thunder, and where I should place with me in this 
pulpit, on the one side, death which threatens you, and on the 
other, my great God, who is about to judge you. But you ex- 
pect to live for many years ! 

What foundation, my brethren, have you for supposing your 
dying day at such a distance ? Is it your youth ? " Yes," you 



CHARLES XII, OF SWEDEN. 423 

answer ; " I am as yet but twenty, but thirty." Sirs, it is not 
you who are twenty or thirty years old ; it is death, which has 
already advanced twenty or thirty years toward you. Observe : 
eternity approaches. Do you know what this eternity is ? It is a 
pendulum whose vibration says continually, — always — ever — 
ever — always — always! In the mean while, a reprobate cries 
out, " What o'clock is it ? " And the same voice answers, 
" Eternity." 



Charles XII. of Sweden.— Db. Johnsox. 

[From the Vanity of Human Wishes.] 

On what foundations stands the warrior's pride, 

How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide ; 

A frame of adamant, a soul of fire, 

No dangers fright him, and no labors tire ; 

O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain, 

Unconquered lord of pleasure and of pain. 

No joys to him pacific scepters yield ; 

"War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field ; 

Behold surrounding kings their power combine, 

And one capitulate, and one resign. 

Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain ; 

u Think nothing gained," he cries, " till nought remain, 

On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly, 

And all be mine beneath the polar sky." 

The march begins in military state, 

And nations on his eye suspended wait ; 

Stern famine guards the solitary coast, 

And winter barricades the realms of frost. 

He comes, nor want nor cold his course delay 

Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day : 

The vanquished hero leaves his broken bands, 

And shows his miseries in distant lands ; 

Condemned a needy supplicant to wait 

While ladies interpose, and slaves debate. 

But did not chance at length her error mend ? 

Did no subverted empire mark his end ? 

Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound, 

Or hostile millions press him to the ground ? 

His fall was destined to a barren strand, 

A petty fortress, and a dubious hand ; 

He left a name, at which the world grew pale 

To point a moral or adorn a tale. 



424 ROSS'S SPEAKEK. 



The Warnings of History.— anon. 

The past is secure. It is unalterable. The seal of eternity ii 
upon it. The wisdom which it has displayed can not be ob- 
scured ; neither can they be debased by human folly or human 
infirmity. The future is that which may well awaken the most 
earnest solicitude, both for the virtue and the permanence of our 
republic. The fate of other republics, their rise, their progress, 
their decline, and their fall, are written but too legibly on pages 
of history, if indeed they were not continually before us in the 
startling fragments of their ruins. 

They have perished, and perished by their own hands. Pros- 
perity enervated them, corruption debased them, and a venal 
populace consummated their destruction. They have sometimes 
been cheated out of their liberties by servile demagogues ; some- 
times betrayed into a surrender of them by false patriots. They 
have disregarded the warning voice of their best statesmen, and 
have persecuted and driven from office their best friends. They 
have reverenced power more in its high abuses and summary 
movements than in its calm and constitutional energy. They 
have surrendered to faction what belonged to the country. Pat- 
ronage and party, the triumph of a leader, and the discontents of 
a day, have outweighed all solid principles and institutions of 
government. 

Such are the melancholy lessons of the past history of the 
republics down to our own. Let the history of the Grecian and 
Italian states warn us of our danger. Let the American youth 
never forget that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the 
toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors, and capable, if 
wisely improved and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their 
latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful 
enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence. The 
structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and 
fidelity ; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order ; its 
foundations solid, and its defenses are impregnable from without. 
It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly 
aspire to such a title. It may, nevertheless, perish in an hour by 
the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers. 

Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelli- 
gence of the citizens. They fall when the wise are banished 
from the public councils because they dare to be honest, and the 
profligate are rewarded because they flatter the people in order 
to betray them. 



LOVE OF COUNTRY. 425 



America the Land of Promise. — Everett 

In that high romance, — if romance it be, — in which the great 
minds of antiquity sketched the fortunes of the ages to come 
they pictured to themselves a favored region beyond the ocean, 
a land of equal laws and happy men. The primitive poets be- 
held it in the islands of the blest ; the Doric bards fancied it in 
the hyperborean regions ; the sage of the academy placed it in 
the lost Atlantis ; and even the sterner spirit of Seneca could 
discern a fairer abode of humanity in distant regions then un- 
known. 

We look back upon these uninspired predictions, and almost 
recoil from the obligation they imply. By us must these fair 
visions be realized ; by us must be fulfilled these high promises 
which burst in trying hours from the longing hearts of the cham- 
pions of truth. There are no more continents or worlds to be 
revealed. Atlantis hath arisen from the ocean ; the farthest 
Thule is reached ; there are no more retreats beyond the sea, 
no more discoveries, no more hopes. Here, then, a mighty 
work is to be fulfilled, or never, by the race of mortals. 



Love of Country, — Charlbs gayarrb. 

No man knows the intense love he nourishes for his own 
country before he visits foreign lands. A man whilst at home 
may find fault with it ; but should he by compulsion, or even 
voluntarily, turn away and depart from what excited his dis- 
pleasure, reprobation, or disgust — why, lo ! distance lends en- 
chantment to the scene ; busy memory wakes up and stirs the 
very depths of his soul ; endearing recollections crowd upon 
nim ; the cherished image of his native country looms before 
him ; it becomes to him a perpetual mirage, and tempts him 
back with outstretched arms, like the loving and forgiving mother, 
who is always ready to welcome the return of the prodigal son. 

If I had ever entertained doubts on the subject, they would 
have been removed by what happened to myself. I had been 
compelled to go to Europe in the hope of repairing a broken 
constitution, and that hope had been realized after a residence 
of several years in France. I loved France before I saw her ; I 
.oved her still more when I became better acquainted with her 
merits. She was the mother-land of some of my ancestors ; her 



426 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

history was household history to me. I took pride in her strength, 

in her civilization, in her prosperity, and in her prodigious 
achievements in peace and war. She was the revered parent 
of my native state of Louisiana. I was received by the French 
as one of them. I appreciated keenly all those social enjoy- 
ments which are to be met with among that highly refined and 
chivalrous people. I secured the esteem and attachment of 
valuable friends. I became deeply grateful for hospitalities ever 
to be remembered. And yet, under such circumstances, with 
such feelings in my breast, I could not keep my imagination 
from constantly wandering back across the Atlantic. 

One day, homesick, I was strolling alone and at random in 
the city of Marseilles, where I had just arrived. I was walking 
with my eyes bent to the ground, and careless which way my 
steps would lead me, when, suddenly lifting up my head, I found 
myself in front of the harbor. At a short distance, full in view, 
stood an American frigate, in all the symmetrical beauty of her 
noble proportions, and with her proud flag, which I had not seen 
for several years, streaming in the wind. Rapidly drawing near 
the quay was one of her boats, impelled by the vigorous arms 
of a crew who seemed to have been picked as the fittest speci- 
mens of those stout hearts who are the pride of our navy. At 
the helm stood erect a young officer, who looked worthy of being 
the commander of such men. At that sight I felt as if I had 
received an electric shock ; my whole body trembled with ner- 
vous excitement ; the blood rushed to my heart ; my eyes be- 
came moist with tears, and I gazed on entranced. Ah, had 
France loaded me with all the honors and wealth which the 
ambition of man can crave, — had I a hundred times sworn alle- 
giance to her, and renounced the United States, — I felt, at the 
moment I speak of, that had the safety of that frigate, on which 
my eyes were riveted, been threatened by those fortifications 
which surrounded her, my choice would have been made at 
once. I would have said to France, " Touch her not ; lay not 
thy fingers on a single one of her spars ; or take back the honors, 
the titles, the wealth showered upon me. I return to that first 
allegiance which was inscribed in my heart by God. I will 
plant my foot on the deck above which waves that flag which I 
can not live to see pulled down, and my destinies shall cling to 
the last plank of that ship as long as it floats upon the water." 
It was a lesson taught me that will long be remembered. 



THE SOUTH. 427 



TJie South. — Jefferson Davis, 

The son of a revolutionary soldier, attachment to this Union 
was among the first lessons of my childhood. Bred to the service 
of my country, from boyhood to mature age I wore its uniform. 
Through the brightest portion of my life I was accustomed tc 
see our flag, historic emblem of the Union, rise with the rising 
and fall with the setting sun. I look upon it now with the affec- 
tion of early love, and seek to maintain and preserve it by a 
strict adherence to the constitution, from which it had its birth, 
and by the nurture of which its stars have come so much to out- 
number its original stripes. Shall that flag, which has gathered 
fresh glory in every war, and become more radiant still by the 
conquest of peace, — shall that flag now be torn by domestic fac- 
tion, and trodden in the dust by petty sectional rivalry ? Shall 
we of the South, who have shared equally with you all your 
toils, all your dangers, all your adversities, and who equally 
rejoice in your prosperity and your fame, shall we be denied 
those benefits guaranteed by our compact, or gathered as the 
common fruits of a common country ? If so, self-respect re- 
quires that we should assert them, and, as best we may, maintain 
that which we could not surrender without losing your respect as 
well as our own. 

If, sir, this spirit of sectional aggrandizement shall cause the 
disunion of these states, the last chapter of our mstory will be a 
sad commentary upon the justice and the wisdom of our people. 
That this Union, replete with blessings to its own citizens, and 
diffusive of hope to the rest of mankind, should fall a victim to a 
selfish aggrandizement and a pseudo philanthropy, prompting 
one portion of the Union to war upon the *:?~2:*stic rights and 
jjeace of another, would be a deep reflection on the good sense 
and patriotism of our day and generation. 

Sir, I ask northern senators to make the case their own ; to 
carry to their own fireside the idea of such intrusion and offen- 
sive discrimination as is offered to us ; realize these irritations, 
so galling to the humble, so intolerable to the haughty ; and 
wake, before it is too late, from the dream that the South will 
tamely submit. Measure the consequences to us of your assump- 
tion, and ask yourselves whether, as a free, honorable, and 
brave people, you would submit to it ? 

It is essentially the characteristic of the chivalrous that they 
never speculate upon the fears of any man ; and I trust that no 
fuch speculations will be made upon either the condition or the 



428 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

supposed weakness of the South. They will bring sad disap- 
pointments to those who indulge them. Rely upon her devotion 
to the Union ; rely upon the feeling of fraternity she inherited, 
and has never failed to manifest ; rely upon the nationality and 
freedom from sedition which has in all ages characterized an 
agricultural people ; give her justice, sheer justice, and the 
reliance will never fail you. 



Similitudes, — Jambs. 

I've sat and seen one bright wave chase 

Its fellow on the strand, 
Then fall away, nor leave a trace 

Upon the printless sand. 
Though scarce the pebbles felt the shock, 
The waves have worn the solid rock. 

I've sat and heard the autumn wind 

Amid the branches play, 
So softly mild, so blandly kind, 

It scarcely stirred the spray ; 
Yet soon it bore spring's verdant birth 
To wither on its native earth. 

I've sat and seen the evening sun 

Sink from the golden sky, 
His long bright race of glory run, 

And close his golden eye. 
So slow he passed, scarce changed the light 
And yet he left the world in night. 

And like yon sea is human life ; 

Events like billows roll ; 
Moment on moment, strife on strife, 

That change us to the soul ; 
And joys like autumn leaves fall fast ; 
Hope sets, and being's light is past. 

I've stood on earth's most daring height, 

And seen day's ruler rise 
In his magnificence of light, 

To triumph through the skies, 



CHARACTER OF BLANNERHASSETT. 429 

And all the darkness of the world 
Far from his shining presence hurled. 

All, too, that fades upon the earth, 

Too weak to linger here, 
Re-blossoms with a second birth, 

To deck the coming year. 
Shall hope, then, man's eternal dower, 
Be frailer than a failing flower ? 

Ah, no ! like autumn leaves that die, 

That bloom again in spring, 
Fresh joys shall rise from those gone by, 

And purer incense bring ; 
And when, like suns, hope sets in night, 
Shall she not beam from worlds more bright ? 



Character of Blannerhassett. — Wikt, 

Who, then, is Blannerhassett ? A native of Ireland, a man 
of letters, who fled from the storms of his own country to find 
quiet in ours. Possessing himself of a beautiful island in the 
Ohio, he rears upon it a palace, and decorates it with every 
romantic embellishment of fancy. A shrubbery that Shenstone 
might have envied blooms around him. Music that might have 
charmed Calypso and her nymphs is his. An extensive library 
spieads its treasures before him. A philosophical apparatus 
offers to him all the secrets and mysteries of nature. Peace, 
tranquillity, and innocence shed their mingled delights around 
him. The evidence would convince you that this is but a faint 
picture of the real life. In the midst of all this peace, this inno- 
cent simplicity and this tranquillity, this feast of the mind, this 
pure banquet of the heart, the destroyer comes ; he comes to 
change this paradise into a hell. A stranger presents himself. 
Introduced to their civilities by the high rank which he had 
lately held in his country, he soon finds his way to their hearts 
by the dignity and elegance of his demeanor, the light and 
beauty of his conversation, and the seductive and fascinating 
power of his address. 

The conquest was not difficult. Innocence is ever simple and 
credulous. Conscious of no design itself, it suspects none in 
others. It wears no guard before its breast. Every door, and 

T 



430 ROSS'S SPEAKER- 

portal, and avenue of the heart is thrown open, and all who 
choose it may enter. Such was the state of Eden when the 
serpent entered its bowers. The prisoner, in a more engaging 
form, winding himself into the open and unpracticed heart of the 
unfortunate Blannerhassett, found but little difficulty in changing 
the native character of that heart, and the objects of its affection. 
By degrees, he infuses into it the fire of his own courage ; a dar- 
ing and desperate thirst for glory ; an ardor panting for great 
enterprises, for all the storm, and bustle, and hurricane of life. 
In a short time, the whole man is changed, and every object of 
his former delight is relinquished. No more he enjoys the tran- 
quil scene ; it has become fiat and insipid to his taste. His books 
are abandoned. His retort and crucible are thrown aside. His 
shrubbery blooms and breathes its fragrance upon the air in 
vain ; he likes it not. His ear no longer drinks the rich melody 
of music ; it longs for the trumpet's clangor and the cannon's 
roar. Even the prattle of his babes, once so sweet, no longer 
affects him ; and the angel smile of his wife, which hitherto 
touched his bosom with ecstasy so unspeakable, is now unseen 
and unfelt. 

Greater objects have taken possession of his soul. His ima- 
gination has been dazzled by visions of diadems, of stars, and 
garters, and titles of nobility. He has been taught to burn, with 
restless emulation, at the names of great heroes and conquerors. 
His enchanted island is destined soon to relapse into a wilder- 
ness ; and, in a few months, the beautiful and tender partner of 
his bosom, whom he lately " permitted not the winds of summer 
to visit too roughly," we find shivering, at midnight, on the win- 
ter banks of the Ohio, and mingling her tears with the torrents, 
that froze as they fell. Yet this unfortunate man, thus deluded 
from his interest and his happiness, thus seduced from the paths 
of innocence and peace, thus confounded in the toils that were 
deliberately spread for him, and overwhelmed by the mastering 
spirit and genius of another, — this man, thus ruined and un- 
done, and made to play a subordinate part in this grand drama 
of guilt and treason, this man is to be called the principal offend- 
er, while he by whom he was thus plunged in misery is com- 
paratively innocent, a mere accessory ! 

Is this reason ? Is it law ? Is it humanity ? Neither the 
human heart nor the human understanding will bear a perver- 
sion so monstrous and absurd ! so shocking to the so'il I so revolt 
ing to reason ! 



AGRICULTURE. 431 



Agriculture. — T>. S. Dickinson. 

We have the high authority of history, sacred and profane, 
for declaring that agriculture is a dignified and time-honored 
calling — ordained and favored of Heaven, and sanctioned by 
experience ; and we are invited to its pursuit by the rewards of 
the past and the present, and the rich promises of the future. 
While the fierce spirit of war, with its embattled legions, has, 
in its proud triumphs, " whelmed nations in blood, and wrapped 
cities in fire," and filled the land with lamentation and mourning, 
it has not brought peace or happiness to a single hearth — dried 
the tears of the widows or hushed the cries of the orphans it has 
made — bound up or soothed one crushed or broken spirit — nor 
heightened the joys of domestic or social life in a single bosom. 
But how many dark recesses of the earth has agriculture illu- 
mined with its blessings ! How many firesides has it lighted up 
with radiant gladness ! How many hearts has it made buoyant 
with domestic hope ! How often, like the good Samaritan, has it 
alleviated want and misery, while the priest and Levite of power 
have passed by on the other side ! How many family altars, 
and gathering places of affection, has it erected ! How many 
desolate homes has it cheered by its consolations ! How have 
its peaceful and gentle influences filled the land with plenteous- 
ness and riches, and made it vocal with praise and thanksgiving ! 

It has pleased the benevolent Author of our existence to set in 
boundless profusion before us the necessary elements for a high 
state of cultivation and enjoyment. Blessings cluster around us 
like fruits of the land of promise, and Science unfolds her treas- 
ures and invites us to partake, literally without money and with- 
out price. The propensities of our nature, as well as the philos- 
ophy of our being, serve to remind us that man was formed for 
care and labor — for the acquisition and enjoyment of property — 
for society and government — to wrestle with the elements around 
him — and that by an active exercise of his powers and faculties 
alone can he answer the ends of his creation, or exhibit his ex- 
alted attributes. His daily wants, in all conditions of life, prompt 
him to exertion, and the spirit of acquisition, so deeply implanted 
in the human breast — that " ruling passion strong in death," so 
universally diffused through the whole family of man — is the 
parent of that laudable enterprise which has caused the wilderness 
to bud and blossom like the rose, planted domestic enjoyments in 
the lair of the beast of prey, and transformed the earth from an 
uncultivated wild into one vast storehouse of subsistence and en- 
joyment. 



432 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

What can be more acceptable to the patriot or the philanthro- 
pist than to behold the great mass of mankind raised above the 
degrading influences of tyranny and indolence, to the rational 
enjoyment of the bounties of their Creator ? — to see, in the 
productions of man's magic powers, the cultivated country, the 
fragrant meadow, the waving harvest, the smiling garden, and 
the tasteful dwelling, and himself chastened by the precepts of 
religion, and elevated by the refinements of science, partaking 
of the fruits of his own industry, with the proud consciousness 
that he eats not the bread of idleness or fraud ; that his gains are 
not wet with the tears of misfortune, nor wrung from his fellow 
by the devices of avarice or extortion ; his joys heightened, his 
sorrows alleviated, and his heart rectified by the cheering voice 
and Heaven-born influences of woman ? Well may he sit down 
under his own vine and fig tree without fear of molestation, and 
his nightly repose be more quiet than that of the stately monarch 
of the East upon his down of cygnets, or the voluptuous Sybarite 
upon his bed of roses. 



An Appeal for Union. — J. m. Berrien. 

Sib, I do not limit my appeal to southern senators ; I address 
myself to senators from whatever quarter of the Union. I ap- 
peal to them as American senators, and I adjure them by their 
recollections of the past — by their hopes of the future — as they 
value the free institutions which the mercy of Providence per- 
mits us to enjoy — by all these considerations I entreat them to 
unite with us in excluding from the national councils this demon 
of discord. The acquisition of territory which it is proposed to 
accomplish by this bill must bring upon us, with accumulated 
force, a question which even now menaces the permanence of 
our Union. I know the firmness of your determination to exert 
your constitutional powers to prevent the extension of our 
domestic institutions. I know the various considerations which 
unite to constitute that determination, and to give to it its unyield- 
ing, irrevocable character. I do not mean to discuss this question 
with you, still less to speak in the language of menace. That is 
alike forbidden by my respect for myself, for you, and for the 
dignity and the interests of my constituents ; but I entreat you to 
listen to truth, dispassionately, calmly announced to you. 

Your determination to deny this right to the South is not more 
fixed and unwavering than theirs to assert it. You do not believe 



LOYALTY TO THE CONSTITUTION. 433 

mat southern men will silently acquiesce in, will tamely submit 
to the denial to them of that which, in their deliberate judgment, 
is the common right of all tne people of the United States. If 
we have a right to acquire territory — if that acquisition be made 
by the common effort of all the states — by the blood and treas- 
ure of all — if all have a common right to share what all have 
united to acquire, — then the exclusion of the South must result in 
one of two things. They must give an unexampled manifesta- 
tion of their devotion to the bond of our Federal Union, by sub- 
mitting to this exclusion, or sadly, though resolutely, determine, 
at whatever hazard, and even against you their brothers in that 
sacred bond, to assert and maintain their rights. You know them 
well enough to know which of these alternatives they will adopt. 
I do most earnestly hope that we may never be brought to so 
fearful a crisis. The danger menaces us even now; but the 
patriotism and intelligence of the American people will, I trust, 
avert it ; will teach us, and will teach you, that our safety, that 
your safety, that the common safety of all alike, forbid the acqui- 
sition of territory, if we would continue to enjoy the precious leg- 
acy which has been transmitted to us — a rich, almost boundless 
domain, capable of ministering to all our wants, of gratifying all 
our desires, and a glorious constitution, which a world in arms 
would vainly assail while we rally round it in our united strength. 



Loyalty to the Constitution, — Stbphbn a. Douglas. 

Ouk forefathers held that the people had an inherent right to 
establish such constitution and laws for the government of them- 
selves and their posterity as they should deem best calculated to 
insure the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; 
and that the same might be altered and changed as experience 
should satisfy them to be necessary and proper. Upon this prin- 
ciple the constitution of the United States was formed, and our 
glorious Union established. All acts of Congress passed in pur- 
suance of the constitution are declared to be the supreme laws 
of the land, and the Supreme Court of the United States is 
charged with expounding the same. 

All officers and magistrates, under the federal and state gov- 
ernments, — executive, legislative, judicial, and ministerial, — 
are required to take an oath to support the constitution, before 
they can enter upon the performance of their respective duties. 
Every person born under the constitution owes allegiance to it ; 
28 



434 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

and every naturalized citizen takes an oath to support it. Fidel- 
ity to the constitution is the only passport to the enjoyment of 
rights under it. When a senator elect presents his credentials, 
he is not allowed to take his seat until he places his hand upon 
the holy evangelist, and appeals to his God for the sincerity of 
his vow to support the constitution. He who does this with a 
mental reservation, or secret intention to disregard any provision 
of the constitution, commits a double crime — is morally guilty 
of perfidy to his God and treason to his country. 

If the constitution of the United States is to be repudiated upon 
the ground that it is repugnant to the divine law, where are the 
friends of freedom and Christianity to look for another and a 
better ? Who is to be the prophet to reveal the will of God and 
establish a theocracy for us ? 

I will not venture to inquire what are to be the form and princi- 
ples of the new government, or to whom is to be intrusted the exe- 
cution of its sacred functions ; for, when we decide that the wis- 
dom of our revolutionary fathers was foolishness, and their piety 
wickedness, and destroy the only system of self-government that 
has ever realized the hopes of the friends of freedom, and 
commanded the respect of mankind, it becomes us to wait 
patiently until the purposes of the latter day saints shall be re- 
vealed unto us. 

For my part, I am prepared to maintain and preserve inviolate 
the constitution as it is, with all its compromises ; to stand or fall 
by the American Union, clinging with the tenacity of life to all 
its glc ious memories of the past and precious hopes of the 
future 



The Village Schoolmaster.— Goummitk. 

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, 
With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, 
There, in his noisy mansion skilled to rule, 
The village master taught his little school ; 
A man severe he was, and stern to view ; 
I knew him well, and every truant knew. 
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace 
The day's disasters in his morning's face ; 
Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee 
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ; 
Full well the busy whisper, circling round, 
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frown«d : 



ARTS AND LEARNING IN AMERICA. 435 

Yet he was kind ; or, if severe in aught, 

The love he bore to learning was in fault ; 

The village all declared how much he knew ; 

'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too ; 

Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage ; 

And e'en the story ran that he could gauge ; 

In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill, 

For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still ; 

While words of learned length and thundering sound 

Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around ; 

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 

That one small head could carry all he knew. 

But past is all his fame : the very spot 

Where many a time he triumphed is forgot 



Prospect of planting the Arts and Learning in 

America, — Berkeley, 

The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime 

Barren of every glorious theme, 
In distant lands now waits a better time, 

Producing subjects worthy fame. 

In happy climes, where from the genial sun 

And virgin earth such scenes ensue, 
The force of art by nature seems outdone, 

And fancied beauties by the true. 

In happy climes, the seat of innocence, 
Where nature guides and virtue rules, 

Where men shall not impose for truth and sense 
The pedantry of courts and schools, — 

There shall be sung another golden age, 

The rise of empire and of arts, 
The good and great inspiring epic rage, 

The wisest heads and noblest hearts. 

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay ; 

Such as she bred when fresh and young, 
When heavenly flame did animate her clay, 

By future poets shall be sung. 



43$ BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

Westward the course of empire takes its way ; 

The four first acts already past, 
A fifth shall close the drama with the day ; 

Time's noblest offspring is the last 



Address to his Soldiers. — Francis Mahiok. 

Well, gentlemen, you see your situation — widely different 
from what it once was. Yes, once we were a happy people. 
Liberty shone upon our land, bright as the sun that gilds yon 
fields; while we and our fathers rejoiced in its lovely beams, 
gay as the birds that enliven our forests. But, alas ! those golden 
days are gone, and the cloud of war now hangs dark and lower- 
ing over our heads. Our once peaceful land is now filled with 
uproar and death. Foreign ruffians, braving us up to our 
very firesides and altars, leave us no alternative but slavery or 
death. 

Two gallant armies have been marched to our assistance ; 
but, for lack of competent commanders, both have been lost. 
That under General Lincoln, after having been duped and butch- 
ered at Savannah, was at last completely trapped at Charleston. 
And that under General Gates, after having been imprudently 
overmarched, is now cut up at Camden. Thus are all our hopes 
from the north entirely at an end ; and poor Carolina is left to 
shift for herself. A sad shift indeed, when not one in a thousand 
of her own children will rise to take her part, but, on the con- 
trary, are madly taking part with the enemy against her. And 
now, my countrymen, I want to know your minds. As to my 
own, that has long been made up. 

I consider my life as but a moment. But I also consider that 
to fill that moment with duty is my all. To guard my innocent 
country against the evils of slavery seems now my greatest 
duty ; and therefore I am determined that while I live she shall 
never be enslaved. She may come to that wretched state for 
what I know, but my eyes shall never behold it. Never shall 
she clank her chains in my ears, and pointing to the ignomin- 
ious badge, exclaim, " It was your cowardice that brought me 
to this." 



SONG Or MAEION'S MEN. 437 



Song of Marion's Men,— William C. Bbyaxt 

OtTR band is few, but true and tried, 

Our leader frank and bold ; 
The British soldier trembles 

When Marion's name is told. 
Our fortress is the good green wood, 

Our tent the cypress tree ; 
We know the forest round us, 

As seamen know the sea. 
We know its walls of thorny vines, 

Its glades of reedy grass, 
Its safe and silent islands 

Within the dark morass. 

Wo, to the English soldiery 

That little dread us near ! 
On them shall light, at midnight, 

A strange and sudden fear ; 
When waking to their tents on fire 

They grasp their arms in vain, 
And they who stand to face us 

Are beat to earth again ; 
And they who fly in terror deem 

A mighty host behind, 
And hear the tramp of thousands 

Upon the hollow wind. 

Grave men they are by broad Santee, 

Grave men with hoary hairs ; 
Their hearts are all with Marion ; 

For Marion are their prayers. 
And lovely ladies greet our band 

With kindliest welcoming, 
With smiles like those of summer, 

And tears like those of spring. 
For them we wear those trusty arms, 

And lay them down no more, 
Till we have driven the Briton, 

Forever, from our shore. 



<jt * 



438 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 



The Fate of the Indians. — Stouy. 

There is, indeed, in the fate of the unfortunate Indians much 
>o awaken our sympathy, and much to disturb the sobriety of 
our judgment ; much which may be urged to excuse their own 
atrocities ; much in their characters which betrays us into an in- 
voluntary admiration. What can be more melancholy than their 
nistory ? By a law of their nature, they seem destined to a slow 
but sure extinction. Every where, at the approach of the white 
man, they fade away. We hear the rustling of their footsteps, 
like that of the withered leaves of autumn, and they are gone 
forever. They pass mournfully by us, and they return no more. 

Two centuries ago, the smoke of their wigwams and the fires 
of their councils rose in every valley, from Hudson's Bay to the 
farthest Florida — from the ocean to the Mississippi and the 
lakes. The shouts of victory and the war dance rang through 
the mountains and the glades. The thick arrows and the deadly 
tomahawk whistled through the forests, and the hunter's trace 
and the dark encampment startled the wild beasts in their lairs. 

But where are they ? Where are the villages, and warriors, 
and youth — the sachems and the tribes — the hunters and their 
families ? They have perished. They are consumed. The 
wasting pestilence has not alone done the mighty work. No ; 
nor famine, nor war. There has been a mightier power, a moral 
canker, which hath eaten into their heart cores ; a plague, which 
the touch of the white man communicated ; a poison, which be- 
trayed them into a lingering ruin. The winds of the Atlantic 
fan not a single region which they may now call their own. Al- 
ready the last feeble remnants of the race are preparing for 
their journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them leave their 
miserable homes, the aged, the helpless, the women, and the 
warriors, " few and faint, yet fearless still." 

The ashes are cold on their native hearths. The smoke no 
longer curls round their lowly cabins. They move on with a 
slow, unsteady step. The white man is upon their heels, for 
terror or dispatch ; but they heed him not. They turn to take a 
last look of their deserted villages. They cast a last glance upon 
the graves of their fathers. They shed no tears ; they utter 
no cries ; they heave no groans. There is something in their 
hearts which passes speech ; there is something in their looks. 
not of vengeance or submission, but of hard necessity, which 
stifles both ; which chokes all utterance ; which has no aim or 
method. It is courage absorbed in despair. They linger but for 
a moment. Their look is onward. They have passed the fatal 



STUDY OF ORATORY IN GREECE AND ROME. 439 

stream. It shall never be repassed by them — no, never ! Yet 
there lies not between us and tiiem an impassable gulf. They 
know and feel that there is for them still one remove farther 
not distant, nor unseen. It is to the general burial-ground of 
the race. 



The Example of our Forefathers. — Sparks. 

The instructive lesson of history, teaching by example, can no- 
where be studied with more profit, or with a better promise, than 
in the revolutionary period of America ; and r«pecially by us 
who sit under the tree our fathers have planted, en^uv 'is shade, 
and are nourished by its fruits. But little is our merit or gain 
that we applaud their deeds, unless we emulate their virtues. 
Love of country was in them an absorbing principle, an undivid- 
ed feeling ; not of a fragment, a section, but of the whole country. 
Union was the arch on which they raised the strong tower of a 
nation's independence. Let the arm be palsied that would loosen 
one stone in the basis of this fair structure, or mar its beauty ; 
the tongue mute that would dishonor their names, by calculating 
the value of that which they deemed without price. 

They have left us an example already inscribed in the world's 
memory ; an example portentous to the aims of tyranny in every 
land ; an example that will console in all ages the drooping as- 
pirations of oppressed humanity. They have left us a written 
charter as a legacy, and as a guide to our course. But every 
day convinces us that a written charter may become powerless. 
Ignorance may misinterpret it ; ambition may assail and faction 
destroy its vital parts ; and aspiring knavery may at last sing its 
requiem on the tomb of departed liberty. It is the spirit which 
lives : in this are our safety and our hope — the spirit of our 
fathers ; and while this dwells deeply in our remembrance, and 
its flame is cherished, ever burning, ever pure, on the altar of 
our hearts, — while it incites us to think as they have thought, and 
do as they have done, — the honor and the praise will be ours to 
have preserved unimpaired the rich inheritance which they so 
nobly achieved. 



The Study of Orator?/ in Greece and ifome.— Wirt. 

In the ancient republics of Greece and Rome, oratory was a 
necessary branch of a finished education. A much smaller pro 



440 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

portion of the citizens were educated than among us ; but of these 
a much larger number became orators. No man could hope for 
distinction or influence, and yet slight this art. The commanders 
of their armies were orators as well as soldiers, and ruled as well 
by their rhetorical as by their military skill. There was no 
trusting with them, as with us, to a natural facility, or the acqui- 
sition of an accidental fluency by actual practice. 

But they served an apprenticeship to the art. They passed 
through a regular course of instruction in schools. They sub- 
mitted to long and laborious discipline. They exercised them- 
selves frequently, both before equals and in the presence of teach- 
ers, who criticised, reproved, rebuked, excited emulation, and 
left nothing undone which art and perseverance could accomplish. 
The greatest orators of antiquity, so far from being favored by 
natural tendencies, — except, indeed, in their high intellectual 
endowments, — had to struggle against natural obstacles; and, 
instead of growing up spontaneously to their unrivaled eminence, 
they forced themselves forward by the most discouraging arti- 
ficial process. 

Demosthenes combated an impediment in speech, an ungain- 
liness of gesture, which at first drove him from the forum in 
disgrace. Cicero failed at first, through weakness of lungs and 
an excessive vehemence of manner, which wearied the hearers 
and defeated his own purpose. These defects were conquered 
by study and discipline. He exiled himself from home, and, 
during his absence, in various lands, passed not a day without a 
rhetorical exercise, seeking the masters who were most severe 
in criticism, as the surest means of leading him to the perfection 
at which he aimed. 



False Qmrage. — Chunking. 

Courage, considered in itself, or without reference to its ori- 
gin and motives, and regarded in its common manifestations, is 
not virtue, is not moral excellence ; and the disposition to exalt 
it above the spirit of Christianity is one of the most ruinous delu- 
sions which have been transmitted to us from barbarous times. 
In most men courage has its origin in a happy organization of 
the body. It belongs to the nerves rather than to the character. 
In some it is an instinct bordering on rashness. In one man it 
springs from strong passions obscuring the idea of danger ; iD 
another, from the want of imagination, or from the capacity of 
bringing future evils near. The courage of the uneducated ma) 



TRITE COURAGE. 441 

ofien be traced to stupidity, to the absence of thought and sensi- 
bility. Many are courageous from the dread of the infamy ab- 
surdly attached to cowardice. One terror expels another. A 
bullet is less formidable than a sneer. To show the moral 
worthlessness of mere courage, of contempt of bodily suffering 
and pain, one consideration is sufficient. The most abandoned 
have possessed it in perfection. The villain often hardens into 
the thorough hero, if courage and heroism be one. The more 
complete his success in searing conscience and defying God, the 
more dauntless his daring. Long-continued vice and exposure 
naturally generate contempt of life and a reckless encounter 01 
peril. Courage, considered in itself, or without reference to its 
causes, is no virtue, and deserves no esteem. It is found in the 
best and the worst, and is to be judged according to the qualities 
from which it springs and with which it is conjoined. 



True Courage.— Channing. 

There is a virtuous, glorious courage ; but it happens to be V 
found least in those who are most admired for bravery. It is /^ 
the courage of principle, which dares to do right in the face of 
scorn, which puts to hazard reputation, rank, the prospects of 
advancement, the sympathy of friends, the admiration of the 
world, rather than violate a conviction of duty. It is the cour- 
age of benevolence and piety, which counts not life dear in with- 
standing error, superstition, vice, oppression, injustice, and the 
mightiest foes of human improvement and happiness. It is 
moral energy, that force of will in adopting duty, over which 
menace and suffering have no power. It is the courage of a 
soul which reverences itself too much to be greatly moved about 
what befalls the body ; which thirsts so intensely for a pure in- 
ward life, that it can yield up the animal life without fear ; in 
which the idea of moral, spiritual, celestial good has been un- 
folded so brightly as to obscure all worldly interests ; which 
aspires after immortality, and therefore heeds little the pains or 
pleasures of a day ; which has so concentered its whole power 
and life in the love of godlike virtue, that it even finds a joy in 
the perils and sufferings by which its loyalty to God and virtue 
may be approved. This courage may be called the perfection 
of humanity, for it is the exercise, result, and expression of the 
highest attributes of our nature. 



442 ROSS'S SPEAKER 



Necessity of a State Law against Dueling. — Anoh. 

The bill which has been read, Mr. Speaker, claims the serious 
attention of this house. It is one in which every citizen is deeply 
interested. Do not, I implore you, confound the sacred name of 
honor with the practice of dueling — with that ferocious preju- 
dice which attaches a*, the virtues to the point of the sword, and 
is only fitted to make bad men bold. In what does this prejudice 
consist ? In an opinion the most extravagant and barbarous that 
ever took possession of the human mind ! — in the opinion that 
all the social duties are supplied by courage ; that a man is no 
more a cheat, no more a rascal, no more a calumniator, if he 
can only fight ; and that steel and gunpowder are the true diag- 
nostics of innocence and worth. And so the law of force is 
made the law of right ; murder, the criterion of honor. To 
grant or receive reparation, one must kill or be killed. All 
offenses may be wiped out by blood. If wolves could reason, 
would they be governed by maxims more atrocious than these ? 

But we are told that public opinion — the opinion of the com- 
munity in which we live — upholds the custom. And, sir, if it 
were so, is there not more courage in resisting than in following 
a false public opinion ? The man with a proper self-respect is 
little sensitive to the unmerited contempt of others. The smile 
of his own conscience is more prized by him than all that the 
world can give or take away. Is there any guilt to be compared 
with that of a voluntary homicide ? Could the dismal recollection 
of blood so shed cease ever to cry for vengeance at the bottom 
of the heart ? The man who, with real or affected gayety and 
coolness, goes to a mortal encounter with a fellow-being, is, in 
my eyes, an object of more horror than the brute beast who 
strives to tear in pieces one of his kind. True courage is con- 
stant, immutable, self-poised. It does not impel us, at one mo- 
ment, to brave murder and death, and, the next, to shiink pu- 
sillanimously from an injurious public opinion. It accompanies 
the good man every where — to the field of danger, in his coun- 
try's cause ; to the social circle, to lift his voice in behalf of truth 
or of the absent ; to the pillow of disease, to fortify him against 
the trials of sickness and the approach of death. Sir, if public 
opinion is unsound on this subject, let us not be participants in 
the guilt of upholding a barbarous custom. Let us affix to it *be 
brand of legislative rebuke and disqualification. 



ON ALTERING THE VIRGINIA CONSTITUTION 443 



On altering the Virginia Constitution. 

John RAjirooLPH, 

Sib., I see no wisdom in making this provision for future 
changes. You must give governments time to operate on the 
people, and give the people time to become gradually assimilated 
to their institutions. Almost any thing is better than this state of 
perpetual uncertainty. A people may have the best form of 
government that the wit of man ever devised, and yet, from its 
uncertainty alone, may, in effect, live under the worst govern- 
ment in the world. Sir, how often must I repeat, that change is 
not reform 1 I am willing that this new constitution shall stand 
as long as it is possible for it to stand ; and that, believe me, is 
a very short time. Sir, it is vain to deny it. They may say 
what they please about the old constitution, — the defect is not 
there. It is not in the form of the old edifice, — neither in the 
design nor the elevation ; it is in the material, — it k m the peo- 
ple of Virginia. To my knowledge, that people are changed 
from what they have been. The four hundred men who went 
out to David were in debt. The partisans of Caesar were in 
debt. The fellow-laborers of Catiline were in debt. And 1 
defy you to show me a desperately indebted people, any where, 
who can bear a regular, sober government. I throw the chal- 
lenge to all who hear me. 1 say that the character of the good 
old Virginia planter — the man who owned from five to twenty 
slaves, or less, who lived by hard work, and who paid his debts 
— is passed away. A new order of things is come. The period 
b.as arrived of living by one's wits ; of living by contracting debts 
mat one can not pay ; and above all, of living by office hunting. 

Sir, what do we see ? Bankrupts — branded bankrupts — 
giving great dinners, sending their children to the most expensive 
schools, giving grand parties, and just as well received as any 
body in society ! I say that in such a state of things, the old con- 
stitution was too good for them, — they could not bear it. No 
sir ; they could not bear a freehold suffrage, and a property 
representation. 1 have always endeavored to do the people jus- 
tice ; but I will not flatter them, — I will not pander to their 
appetite for change. I will do nothing to provide for change. I 
will not agree to any rule of future apportionment, or to any 
provision for future changes, called amendments to the constitu- 
tion. Those who love change — who delight in public confu- 
sion — who wish to feed the caldron, and make it bubb)e — 
may vote if they please, for fature changes. But by what spell 



444 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

by what formula, are you going to bind the people to aJ future 
time ? The days of Lycurgus are gone by, when W3 could 
swear the people not to alter the constitution until he should 
return. You may make what entries on parchment you please : 
give me a constitution that will last for half a century ; that is all 
I wish for. No constitution that you can make will last the one 
half of half a century. Sir, I will stake any thing, snon of my 
salvation, that those who are malcontent now will be more mal- 
content three years hence than they are at this day. I have no 
favor for this constitution. I shall vote against its adoption, and 
I shall advise all the people of my district to set their faces — 
ay, and their shoulders, too — against it. 



Lodgings for Single Gentlemen,— Colman. 

Who has e'er been in London, that overgrown place, 
Has seen, " Lodgings to Let," stare him full in the face. 
Some are good, and let dearly ; while some, 'tis well known 
Are so dear and so bad they are best let alone. 

Will Waddle, whose temper was studious and lonely, 
Hired lodgings that took single gentlemen only ; 
But Will was so fat he appeared like a tun, 
Or like two single gentlemen rolled into one. 

He entered his rooms, and to bed he retreated ; 
But all the night long he felt fevered and heated ; 
And, though heavy to weigh as a score of fat sheep, 
He was not, by any means, heavy to sleep. 

Next night 'twas the same, and the next, and the next ; 
He perspired like an ox, he was nervous and vexed, 
Week after week, till, by weekly succession, 
His weakly condition was past all expression. 

In six months his acquaintance began much to doubt him; 
For his skin " like a lady's loose gown " hung about him. 
He sent for a doctor, and cried, like a ninny, 
" I've lost many pounds — make me well — there's a guinea.' 

The doctor looked wise. " A slow fever," he said ; 
Prescribed sudorifics, and going to bed. 



THE RICH MAN AND THE POOR MAN. 445 

' Sudorifics in bed," exclaimed Will, " are humbugs ; 
I've enough of them here, without paying for drugs." 

Will kicked out the doctor : but when ill indeed, 
E'en dismissing the doctor don't always succeed ; 
So, calling his host, he said, " Sir, do you know 
I'm the fat single gentleman, six months ago ? 

" Look ye, landlord ; 1 think," argued Will with a grin, 
" That with honest intentions you first took me in : 
But from the first night — and to say it I'm bold — 
I've been so very hot, that I'm sure 1 caught cold." 

Quoth the landlord, " Till now I ne'er had a dispute ; 
I've let lodgings ten years — I'm a baker to boot ; 
In airing your sheets, sir, my wife is no sloven ; 
And your bed is immediately — over my oven." 

" The oven ! " says Will. Says the host, " Why this passion ? 
In that excellent bed died three people of fashion. 
Why so crusty, good sir ? " — " Odds ! " cried Will in a taking, 
" Who would not be crusty, with a half a year's baking ? " 

Will paid for his rooms. Cried the host, with a sneer, 
" Well, I see you've been going away half a year." 
"Friend, we can't well agree — yet no quarrel," Will said; 
" But I'd rather not perish while you make your bread." 



The Rich Man and the Poor Man.—KmaLsmx» 

So goes the world ; if wealthy, you may call 

This friend, that brother — friends and brothers all ; 

Though you are worthless, witless, never mind it ; 
You may have been a stable boy — what then ? 
Tis wealth, good sir, makes honorable men. 

You seek respect, no doubt, and you will find it. 
But if you're poor, Heaven help you ! Though your sir* 
Had royal blood within him, and though you 
Possess the intellect of angels too, 

'Tis all in vain ; the world will ne'er inquire 
On such a score : why should it take the pains r 
'Tis easif <• to weigh purses, sure, than brains. 



446 ROSS'S SPEAKER, 

I 01 .ce saw a poor fellow, keen and clever, 
Witty and wise : he paid a man a visit, 

And no one noticed him, and no one ever 
Gave him a welcome. " Strange," cried I, " whence is it? 
He walked on this side, then on that, 
He tried to introduce a social chat ; 
Now here, now there, in vain he tried ; 
Some formally and freezingly replied, 

And some 
Said by their silence, " Better stay at home." 
A rich man burst the door, 
As Croesus rich ; I'm sure 
He could not pride himself upon his wit ; 
And as for wisdom, he had none of it ; 
He had what's better — he had wealth. 

What a confusion ! All stand up erect ; 
These crowd around to ask him of his health ; 

These bow in honest duty and respect ; 
And these arrange a sofa or a chair, 
And these conduct him there. 
" Allow me, sir, the honor ; " then a bow 
Down to the earth. Is't possible to show 
Meet gratitude for such kind condescension ? 
The poor man hung his head, 
And to himself he said, 
" This is indeed beyond my comprehension : " 
Then looking round, 
One friendly face he found, 
And said, " Pray tell me, why is wealth preferred 

To wisdom ? " " That's a silly question, friend," 
Replied the other, " Have you never heard, 
A man may lend his store 
Of gold or silver ore, 
Bu wisdom none can borrow, nor can lend ? " 



Paddy's Metamorphosis. — Thomas Moobe. 

About fifty years since, in the days of our daddies, 

That plan was commenced which ihe wise now applaud 

Of shipping off Ireland's most turbulent paddies 
As good raw materials for settlers abroad. 



OTHELLO'S APOLOGY. 44* 

Some West Indian island, whose name I forget, 

Was the region then chosen for the scheme so romantic ; 

And such the success the first colony met, 

That a second, soon after, set sail o'er the Atlantic. 

Behold them now safe at the long-iooked-for shore, 

Sailing in between banks that the Shannon might greet, 

And thinking of friends, whom, but two years before, 
They had sorrowed to lose, but would soon again meet. 

And, hark ! from the shore a glad welcome there came : 
" Arrah, Paddy from Cork, is it you, my swate boy ? " 

While Pat stood astounded to hear his own name 

Thus hailed by black creatures, who capered for joy. 

" Can it possibly be ? " Half amazement, half doubt, 
Pat listens again ; rubs his eyes and looks steady ; 

Then heaves a deep sigh, and in horror yells out, 

" Dear me — only think — black and curly already ! " 

Deceived by that well-mimicked brogue in his ears, 
Pat read his own doom in these wool-headed figures, 

And thought, " What a climate, in less than two years, 
To tur^ a whole cargo of Pats into niggers ! " 



Othello's Apology.— Shajcspxabb. 

Most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors, 
My very noble and approved good masters, 
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter 
It is most true ; true, I have married her ; 
The very head and front of my offending 
Hath this extent, no more. 

Rude am I in speech, 
And little blessed with the set phrase of peace ; 
For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith, 
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used 
Their dearest action in the tented field ; 
And little of this great world can I speak 
More than pertains to feats of broil and battle ; 
And therefore little shall I grace my cause 
In speaking of myself. Yet, by your gracious patience. 



448 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

I will a round, unvarnished tale deliver 

Of my whole course of love ; what drugs, what charm*, 

What conjuration, and what mighty magic, 

(For such proceeding I am charged withal,) 

I won his daughter with. 

Her father loved me ; oft invited me ; 

Still questioned me the story of my life, 

From year to year ; the battles, sieges, fortunes 

That I have passed. 

I ran it through, even from my boyish days, 

To the very moment that he bade me tell it ; 

Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances, 

Of moving accidents, by flood and field ; 

Of hair-breadth 'scapes in the imminent deadly breach, 

Of being taken by the insolent foe, 

And sold to slavery ; of my redemption thence ; 

And with it, all my travel's history. 

These things to hear 
Would Desdemona seriously incline ; 
But still the house affairs would draw her thence ; 
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch, 
She'd come again, and with a greedy ear 
Devour up my discourse ; which I observing, 
Took once a pliant hour, and found good means 
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart, 
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate, 
Whereof by parcels she had something heard, 
But not attentively. 

I did consent, 
And often did beguile her of her tears, 
When I did speak of some distressful stroke, 
That my youth suffered. My story being done, 
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs : 
She said, In faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange ; 
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful ; 
She wished she had not heard it ; yet she wished, 
That Heaven had made her such a man. 

She thanked me 
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, 
I should but teach him how to tell my story, 
And that would woo her. On this hint I spake : 
She loved me for the dangers I had passed; 
And I loved her that she did pity them. 
This only is the witchcraft I have used. 



COMPETENCE. 449 



The Toilet -Von, 

And now unveiled the toilet stands displayed, 
Each silver vase in mystic order laid ; 
First, robed in white, the nymph intent adores, 
With head uncovered, the cosmetic powers. 
A heavenly image in the glass appears ; 
To that she bends, to that her eye she rears ; 
The inferior priestess at her altar's side, 
Trembling, begins the sacred rites of pride. 
Unnumbered treasures ope at once, and here 
The various offerings of the world appear ; 
From each she nicely culls with curious toil, 
And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil. 
This casket India's glowing gems unlocks, 
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box : 
The tortoise here and elephant unite, 
Transformed to combs, the speckled and the white. 
Here files of pins extend their shining rows, 
Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet-doux. 
Now awful beauty puts on all its arms ; 
The fair each moment rises in her charms, 
Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace, 
And calls forth all the wonders of her face ; 
Sees by degrees a purer blush arise, 
And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes. 
The busy sylphs surround their darling care ; 
These set the head, and those divide the hair ; 
Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown, 
And Betty's praised for labors not her own. 



Competence. — Swot, 

I've often wished that I had clear, 
For life, six hundred pounds a year, 
A handsome house to lodge a friend, 
A river at my garden's end, 
A terrace walk, and half a rood 
Of land set out to plant a wood. 
Well, now I have all this and more, 
I ask not to increase my store ; 
29 



460 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

But here a grievance seems to lie : 

All this is mine but till I die ; 

I can't but think 'twould sound more clever 

To me and to my heirs forever, 

If I ne'er got or lost a groat 

By any trick or any fault ; 

And if I pray for reason's rules, 

And not, like forty other fools, 

As thus, " Vouchsafe, O gracious Maker, 

To grant me this and t'other acre ; 

Or, if it be thy will and pleasure, 

Direct my plow to find a treasure ! " 

But only what my station fits, 

And to be kept in my right wits ; 

Preserve, almighty Providence, 

Just what you gave me, competence, 

And let me in these shades compose 

Something in verse as true as prose. 



Lord UUin's Daughter.— g*m*vkll 

A chieftain, to the Highlands bound, 
Cries, " Boatman, do not tarry, 

And I'll give thee a silver pound 
To row us o'er the ferry." 

" Now, who be ye would cross Loch Gyle, 
This dark and stormy water ? w 

« O, Pm the chief of Ulva's Isle, 
And this, Lord Ullin's daughter. 

u And fast before her father's men 
Three days we've fled together ; 

For should he find us in the glen, 
My blood would stain the heather. 

w His horsemen hard behind us ride ; 

Should they our steps discover, 
Then who will cheer my bonny bride, 

When they have slain her lover ? " 

Out spoke the hardy Highland wight, 
" I'll go, my chief, I'm ready : 



LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER. 451 

It is not for your silver bright, 
But for your winsome lady. 

" And by my word, the bonny bird 

In danger shall not tarry ; 
So, though the waves are raging white, 

I'll row you o'er the ferry." 

By this, the storm grew loud apace, 

The water wraith was shrieking ; 
And in the scowl of heaven each face 

Grew dark as they were speaking. 

But still, as wilder grew the wind, 

And as the night grew drearer, 
Adown the glen rode armed men ; 

Their trampling sounded nearer. 

" O, haste thee, haste ! " the lady cries, 
" Though tempests round us gather ; 

I'll meet the raging of the skies, 
But not an angry father." 

The boat has left the stormy land, 

A stormy sea before her : 
When, O, too strong for human hand 

The tempest gathered o'er her. 

And still they rowed amid the roar 

Of waters fast prevailing : 
Lord Ullin reached that fatal shore ; 

His wrath was changed to wailing. 

For sore dismayed, through storm and shade 

His child he did discover ; 
One lovely hand she stretched for aid, 

And one was round her lover. 

" Come back ! come back ! " he cried in grief 

" Across this stormy water : 
And I'll forgive your Highland chief: 

My daughter ! O, my daughter ! " 

Twas vain : the loud waves lashed the shore, 

Return or aid preventing : 
The waters wild went o'er his child, 

And he was left lamenting. 



452 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Retrospect, — Cowm*. 

Such comprehensive views the spirit takes, 

That in a few short moments I retrace, 

As in a map the voyager his course, 

The windings of my way through many year*. 

Short as in retrospect the journey seems, 

It seemed not always short. The rugged path 

And prospect, oft so dreary and forlorn, 

Moved many a sigh at its disheartening length. 

Yet, feeling present evils, while the past 

Faintly impress the mind, or not at all, 

How readily we wish time spent revoked, 

That we might try the ground again, where once 

Through inexperience, as we now perceive, 

We missed that happiness we might have found. 

Some friend is gone, perhaps his son's best friend , 

A father, whose authority, in show 

When most severe, and mustering all its force, 

Was but the graver countenance of love ; 

Whose favor, like the clouds of spring, might lower 

And utter, now and then, an awful voice, 

But had a blessing in its darkest frown, 

Threatening at once and nourishing the plant 

We loved, but not enough, the gentle hand 

That reared us. At a thoughtless age, allured 

By every gilded folly, we renounced 

His sheltering side, and wilfully forewent 

That converse, which we now in vain regret. 

How gladly would the man recall to life 

The boy's neglected sire ! a mother, too, 

That softer friend, perhaps more gladly still, 

Might he demand them at the gates of death. 

Sorrow has, since they went, subdued and tamed 

The playful humor. He could now endure, 

Himself grown sober in the vale of tears, 

And feel a parent's presence no restraint. 

But not to understand a treasure's worth 

Till time has stolen away the slighted good, 

Is cause of half the poverty we feel, 

And makes the world the wilderness it is. 



POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 453 



Poetry of the Bible,— dr. spring. 

One of the most eminent critics has said, that " devotional 
poetry can not please." If it be so, then has the Bible carried 
the dominion of poetry into regions that are inaccessible to world- 
ly ambition. It has crossed the enchanted circle, and, by the 
beauty, boldness, and originality of its conceptions, has given to 
devotional poetry a glow, a richness, a tenderness, in vain sought 
for in Shakspeare or Cowper, in Scott or in Byron. 

Where is there poetry that can be compared with the Song of 
Moses after the destruction of Pharaoh ; with the Psalms of 
David ; with the Song of Solomon ; and with the Prophecies of 
Isaiah ? Where is there an elegiac ode to be compared with the 
Song of David upon the death of Saul and Jonathan, or the Lam- 
entations of Jeremiah ? Where, in ancient or modern poetry, is 
there a passage like this ? u In thoughts from the visions of the 
night, when deep sleep falleth on man, fear came upon me, and 
trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit 
passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh stood up. It stood 
still, but I could not discern the form thereof. An image was 
before mine eyes. There was silence. And I heard a voice, 
saying, Shall mortal man be more just than God ? shall a man 
be more pure than his Maker ? Behold, he putteth no trust in 
his servants, and his angels he charge th with folly. How much 
less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is as 
the dust, and who are crushed before the moth ! " 

Men who have felt the power of poetry, when they have 
marked the " deep-working passion of Dante," and observed the 
elevation of Milton, as he " combined image with image, in lofty 
gradations," have thought that they discovered the indebtedness 
of these writers to the poetry of the Old Testament. But how 
much more sublime is Isaiah than Milton ! How much more en- 
kindling than Dante" is David ! How much more picturesque 
than Homer is Solomon or Job ! Like the rapid and glowing 
argumentations of Paul, the poetic parts of the Bible may bo 
read a thousand times, and they have all the freshness and glow 
of the first perusal. 

Where, in the compass of human language, is there a para- 
graph, which, for boldness and variety of metaphor, delicacy and 
majesty of thought, strength and invention, elegance and refine- 
ment, equals the passage in which " God answers Job out of the 
whirlwind " ? What merely human imagination, in the natural 
progress of a single discourse, and, apparently, without effort, 

U 



154 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

ever thus went down to " the foundations of the earth ; " stood at 
" the doors of the ocean ; " visited " the place where the day- 
spring from on high takes hold of the uttermost parts of the 
earth ; " entered into " the treasures of the snow and the hail ; " 
traced " the path of the thunderbolt ; " and penetrating the re- 
tired chambers of nature, demanded, " Hath the rain a father ? 
or who hath begotten the drops of the dew ? " And how bold 
its flights, how inexpressibly striking and beautiful its antitheses, 
when, from the warm and sweet Pleiades, it wanders to the sterner 
Orion ; and, in its rapid course, hears the " young lions crying 
unto God for lack of meat ; " sees the war horse pawing in the 
valley ; descries the eagle on the crag of the rock ; and, in all 
that is vast and minute, dreadful and beautiful, discovers and pro- 
claims the glory of Him who is "excellent in counsel and 
wonderful in working"! 



The Same, concluded. 

The style of Hebrew poetry is every where forcible and 
figurative beyond example. The Book of Job stands not alone 
in this sententious, spirited, and energetic form and manner. It 
prevails throughout the poetic parts of the Scriptures ; and they 
stand, confessedly, the most eminent examples to be found of the 
truly sublime and beautiful. I confess I have not much of the 
spirit of poetry. It is a fire that is enkindled at the living lamp 
of nature, and glows only on a few favored altars. And yet I 
can not but love the poetic associations of the Bible. Now, they 
are sublime and beautiful, like the mountain torrent, swollen and 
impetuous by the sudden bursting of the cloud ; now, they are 
grand and awful, like the stormy Galilee when the tempest beat 
upon the fearful disciples ; again, they are placid as that calm 
lake, when the Savior's feet have touched its waters, and stilled 
them into peace. 

There is also a sublimity, an invention, in the imagery of 
the Bible, that is found in no other book. In the Bible you have 
allegory, apologue, parable, and enigma, all clearly intelligible, 
and enforcing truth with a strong and indelible impression. You 
have significant actions, uttering volumes of instruction ; as when 
' Jesus called a little child, and set him in the midst of his disci- 
ples, and said, Except ye be converted, and become as little 
children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven ; " as 
when he cursed the barren fig tree ; as when he " washed hit 



SONG OF MOSES. 455 

disciples' feet." And where is there a comparison like this ? 
u And the heavens departed as a scroll, when it is rolled togeth- 
er." Where is there a description like this ? " And I saw an 
angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying 
to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather 
yourselves together unto the supper of the great God." Or 
where is there a sentence like the following ? " And I saw a 
great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the 
earth and the heavens fled away, and there was found no place 
for them." 

English literature is no common debtor to the Bible. In 
what department of English literature may not the difference be 
discovered between the spirit and sentiments of Christian writers 
and those who have drawn all their materials of thought and of 
ornament from pagan writers ? We find a proof of the superi- 
ority of Christian principles even in those works of imagination 
which are deemed scarcely susceptible of influence from religion. 
The common romance and the novel, with all their fooleries and 
ravings, would be more contemptible than they are, did they not, 
sometimes, undesignedly catch a conception, or adorn a character 
from the rich treasury of revelation. And the more splendid 
fictions of the poet derive their highest charm from the evangel- 
ical philanthropy, tenderness, and sublimity that invest them. 
But for the Bible, Homer and Milton might have stood upon the 
same shelf, equal in morality, as they are competitors for renown ; 
Young had been ranked with Juvenal ; and Cowper had united 
with Horace and with Ovid to swell the tide of voluptuousness. 



Song' of Moses after the Passage of the Red Sea. 

Fifteenth Chapter of Exodus. 

I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously ; 

The horse and his rider hath he whelmed in the sea. 

My praise and my song is Jehovah, 

And he is become my salvation : 

He is my God, and I will praise him ; 

My fathers' God, and I will exalt him. 

Jehovah is a man of war : Jehovah is his name. 

The chariots of Pharaoh and his hosts hath he cast into the sea 

And his choicest leaders into the Red Sea. 

The floods have covered them ; they went down , 



456 .ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Into the abyss they went down as a stone. 

Thy right hand, O Jehovah, hath made itself glorious in power . 
Thy right hand, O Jehovah, hath dashed in pieces the enemy ; 
And in the strength of thy majesty, thou hast destroyed thine 

adversaries. 
Thou didst let loose thy wrath : it consumed them like stubble. 

With the blast of thy nostrils the waters were heaped together : 
The flowing waters stood upright as a heap ; 
The floods were congealed in the heart of the sea. 
The enemy said, " I will pursue, I will overtake ; 
I will divide the spoil ; my soul shall be satisfied ; 
I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them." 
Thou didst blow with thy breath, the sea covered them : 
They sank as lead in the mighty waters. 

Who is like unto thee among the gods, O Jehovah ! 

Who is like unto thee, making thyself glorious in holiness, 

Fearful in praises, executing wonders ! 

Thou didst stretch out thy right hand, the earth swallowed them 

Thou hast led forth, in thy mercy, the people whom thou hast 

redeemed ; 
Thou hast guided them in thy strength to the habitation of thy 

holiness. 
The people shall hear and be disquieted : 
Terror shall seize the inhabitants of Philistia. 
Then the nobles of Edom shall be confounded : 
The mighty ones of Moab, trembling, shall take hold upon them : 
All the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away : 
Terror and perplexity shall fall upon them : 
Because of the greatness of thine arm, they shall be still as a 

stone, 
Till thy people pass over, O Jehovah, 
Till the people pass over whom thou hast redeemed. 
Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountains of 

thine inheritance, 
The place for thy dwelling which thou hast prepared, O 

Jehovah, 
The sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established. 
T ehovah shall reign forever and ever. 



THE CLOSING YEAR. 45? 



The Closing Year. — Q. d. Pbbnticb. 

'Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now 

Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er 

The still and pulseless world. Hark ! on the winds 

The bell's deep tones are swelling ; 'tis the knell 

Of the departed year. No funeral train 

Is sweeping past ; yet, on the stream and wood, 

With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest, 

Like a pale, spotless shroud ; the air is stirred 

As by a mourner's sigh ; and on yon cloud, 

That floats so still and placidly through Heaven, 

The spirits of the Seasons seem to stand, — 

Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, 

And Winter, with his aged locks, — and breathe 

In mournful cadences, that come abroad 

Like the far wind harp's wild, touching wail, 

A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year, 

Gone from the earth forever. 

'Tis a time 
For memory and for tears. Within the deep, 
Still chambers of the heart, a specter dim, 
Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time 
Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold 
And solemn finger to the beautiful 
And holy visions that have passed away, 
And left no shadow of their loveliness 
On the dead waste of life. That specter lifts 
The coffin lid of Hope, and Joy, and Love, 
And bending mournfully above the pale, 
Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flower* 
O'er what has passed to nothingness. 

The year 
Has gone, and with it many a glorious throng 
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow, 
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course 
It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful, 
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand 
Upon the strong man ; and the haughty form 
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim. 



*58 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged 
The bright and joyous ; and the tearful wail 
Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song 
And reckless shout resounded. It passed o'er 
The battle plain, where sword, and spear, and shield 
Flashed in the light of midday ; and the strength 
Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass, 
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above 
The crushed and moldering skeleton. It came, 
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve ; 
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air, 
It heralded its millions to their home 
In the dim land of dreams. 

Remorseless Time ! 
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe ! What power 
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt 
His iron heart to pity. On, still on, 
He presses, and forever. The proud bird, 
The condor of the Andes, that can soar 
Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave 
The fury of the northern hurricane, 
And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, 
Furls his broad wing at nightfall, and sinks down 
To rest upon his mountain crag ; but Time 
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, 
And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind 
His rushing pinion. 

Revolutions sweep 
O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast 
Of dreaming sorrow ; cities rise and sink 
Like bubbles on the water ; fiery isles 
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back 
To their mysterious caverns ; mountains rear 
To heaven their bold and blackened cliffs, and bow 
Their tall heads to the plain ; and empires rise, 
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries, 
And rush down, like the Alpine avalanche, 
Startling the nations ; and the very stars, 
Yon bright and glorious blazonry of God, 
Glitter a while in their eternal depths, 
And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, 



THE LAST MAN 459 

Shoot from their glorious spheres, ana pass away 
To darkle in the trackless void ; yet Time, 
Time, the tomb builder, holds his fierce career. 
Dark, stern, all pitiless, and pauses not 
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path, 
To sit and muse, like other conquerors, 
Upon the fearful ruin he had wrought 



The Last Mm. — Campbell. 

All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, 

The sun himself must die, 
Before the mortal shall assume 

Its immortality. 
I saw a vision in my sleep 
That gave my spirit strength to sweep 

Adown the gulf of time. 
I saw the last of human mold 
That shall creation's death behold, 

As Adam saw her prime. 

The sun's eye had a sickly glare, 

The earth with age was wan ; 
The skeletons of nations were 

Around that lonely man. 
Some had expired in fight ; the brands 
Still rusted in their bony hands ; 

In plague and famine some. 
Earth's cities had no sound nor treact, 
And ships were drifting with the dead 

To shores where all was dumb. 

Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood, 

With dauntless words and high, 
That shook the sear leaves from the wood 

As if a storm passed by ; 
Saying, " We are twins in death, proud sun 
Thy face is cold, thy race is run ; 

'Tis mercy bids thee go. 
For thou, ten thousand thousand years, 
Hast seen the tide of human tears 

That shall no longer flow. 



460 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

" What though beneath thee man put forth 

His pomp, his pride, his skill, 
And arts that made fire, flood, and earth 

The vassals of his will ; 
Yet mourn I not thy parted sway, 
Thou dim, discrowned king of day ; 

For all these trophied arts 
And triumphs, that beneath thee sprang, 
Healed not a passion or a pang 

Entailed on human hearts. 

"Go, let oblivion's curtain fall 

Upon the stage of men ; 
Nor, with thy rising beams, recall 

Life's tragedy again. 
Its piteous pageants bring not back, | 

Nor waken flesh upon the rack 

Of pain anew to writhe, 
Stretched in disease's shapes abhorred, 
Or mown in battle by the sword, if 

Like grass beneath the scythe. * 

tt Even I am weary in yon skies 

To watch thy fading fire ; 
Test of all sumless agonies, 

Behold not me expire. 
My lips, that speak thy dirge of death, 
Their rounded gasp and gurling breath 

To see thou shalt not boast. 
The eclipse of nature spreads my pall, 
The majesty of darkness shall 

Receive my parting ghost. 

" This spirit shall return to Him 

That gave its heavenly spark ; 
Yet think not, sun, it shall be dim 

When thou thyself art dark. 
No ! it shall live again, and shine 
In bliss unknown to beams of thine, 

By Him recalled to breath 
Who captive led captivity, 
Who robbed the grave of victory, 

And took the sting from death. i 

■.''/'": 



COLUMBIA, REMEMBER THY HEROES. 4()J 

" Go, sun, while mercy holds me up 

On nature's awful waste, 
To drink this last and bitter cup 

Of grief that man shall taste ; 
Go, tell the night, that hides thy face, 
Thou saw'st the last of Adam's race, 

On earth's sepulchral clod, 
The darkening universe defy 
To quench his immortality, 

Or shake his trust in God." 



Columbia, remember thy Heroes. — Jambs g. Clau. 

Columbia, remember thy heroes of old, 

The pride of me world's brightest story ; 
Forget not the time when the tombstone was rolled 

From the sepulchered morn of thy glory. 
Ah, then, in his grandeur, thy Washington rose, 

When the last hope of freedom seemed faded ; 
And the legions of liberty gave to their foes 

A grave in the soil they invaded. 

And nations that slumbered in darkness and crime 

Awoke with a wondering devotion, 
To see thee burst forth from the shadows of time, 

Like the sun from the mist of the ocean. 
The wilderness sang in the beams of thy worth, 

And peace like a diadem crowned thee, 
When discord and ruin were rocking the earth, 

And kingdoms were reeling around thee. 

And now, in the power of beauty and youth, 

A beacon to wanderers benighted, 
Shall tyranny witness a stain on thy truth, 

And scoff at thy purity blighted ? 
How long must the craft of the felon and knave 

Pollute what thy fathers defended ? 
How long, at thy shrines, must the prayers of the brave 

With the creed of the bigot be blended ? 

Columbia, remember thy heroes of yore, 
The pride of the world's brighter glory ; 



462 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Forget not the time when they fell on thy shore, 
In the wild, crimson morn of thy glory. 

Though shrouded in darkness their bodies repose, 
Let their truth to thy children be given ; 

As the day star, when lost in the dark billow, throws 
Its light o'er the millions of even. 



Washington in Retirement,— Spabks. 

No part of Washington's career commands more admiration 
than his private life, after he had retired from the presidency of 
the United States. Having served his country as a soldier and 
a chief magistrate, he had yet something to do — to set a great 
and noble example in the surrender of power and personal 
ambition. 

The following passages will show, that in this, as in every 
thing else, he seems to be superior to almost all other men. 
Being established again at Mount Vernon, and freed from public 
toils and cares, Washington returned to the same habits of life 
and the same pursuits which he had always practiced at that 
place. 

In writing to a friend, a few weeks after his return, he saia 
that he began his daily course with the rising of the sun, and first 
made preparations for the business of the day. " By the time I 
have accomplished these matters," he adds, " breakfast is ready. 
This being over, I mount my horse and ride around my farms, 
which employs me until it is time to dress for dinner, at which I 
rarely miss seeing strange faces, come, as they say, out of 
respect for me. 

" The usual time of sitting at table, a walk, and tea, bring 
me within the dawn of candle light ; previous to which, if not pre- 
vented by company, I resolve, that as soon as the glimmering 
taper supplies the place of the great luminary, I will retire to my 
writing table, and acknowledge the letters I have received. 
Having given you this history of a day, it will serve for a year." 

And in this manner a year passed away, and with no other 
variety than that of the change of visiters, who came from ali 
parts to pay their respects or gratify their curiosity. The 
feelings of Washington, on being relieved from the solicitude and 
burdens of office, were forcibly expressed in letters to his friends. 

" At length," said he, in writing to Lafayette, " I am become 
a private citizen, on the banks of the Potomac ; and, under the 



THE GRAVE OF WASHINGTON. 463 

shadow of my own vine and fig tree, free from the bustle of » 
camp and the busy scenes of public life, I am solacing myself 
with those tranquil enjoyments, of which the soldier, who is ever 
in pursuit of fame, the statesman, whose watchful days and sleep- 
Vss nights are spent in devising schemes to promote the welfare 
ot his own, perhaps the ruin of other countries, — as if this globe 
Vas insufficient for us all, — and the courtier, who is always 
watching the countenance of his prince, in hopes of catching a 
gracious smile, can have very little conception. 

" I have not only retired from all public employments, but I 
ftm retiring within myself, and shall be able to view the solitary 
/alk, and tread the paths of private life, with heartfelt satis- 
faction. Envious of none, I am determined to be pleased with 
all ; and this, my dear friend, being the order of my march, I 
will move gentlv down the stream of life, until I sleep with my 
fathers." 



The Grave of Washing-ton. — Albert Pim. 

Disturb not his slumber ; let Washington sleep 
'Neath the boughs of the willow that over him weep ; 
His arm is unnerved, but his deeds remain bright 
As the stars in the dark vaulted heaven at night. 

O, wake not the hero ! his battles are o'er ; 
Let him rest undisturbed on Potomac's fair shore ; 
On the river's green border as flowery dressed, 
With the hearts he loved fondly, let Washington rest. 

Awake not his slumbers ; tread lightly around ; 
'Tis the grave of a freeman, 'tis liberty's mound ; 
The name is immortal ; our freedom is won ; 
Brave sire of Columbia, our own Washington ! 

O, wake not the hero ! his battles are o'er ; 
Let him rest, calmly rest, on his dear native shore ; 
While the stars and the stripes of our country shall wave 
O'er the land that can boast of a Washington's grave. 



4^4 ROSS'S SPEAKER 



Daniel Webster. — o. w. Holmbs. 

No gloom that stately shape can hide, 
No change uncrown its brow ; behold ! 

Dark, calm, large-fronted, lightning-eyed, 
Earth has no double from its mould. 

Ere from the field by valor won 
The battle smoke had rolled away, 

And bared the blood-red setting sun, 
His eyes were opened on the day. 

His .and was but a shelving strip 

Black with the strife ihat made it free ; 

He lived to see its banners dip 
Their fringes in the western sea. 

The boundless prairies learned his name, 
His words the mountain echoes knew, 

The northern breezes swept his fame 
From icy lake to warm bayou. 

In toil he lived, in peace he died, 
When life's full cycle was complete, 

Put off his robes of power and pride, 
And laid them at his Maker's feet 

His rest is by the storm-swept waves, 
Whom life's wild tempests roughly tried, 

Whose heart was like the streaming cave 
Of oceans throbbing at his side. 

Death's cold white hand is like the snow 
Laid softly on the furrowed hill ; 

It hides the broken seams below, 
And leaves its glories brighter still. 

In vain the envious tongue upbraids , 
His name a nation's heart shall keep, 

Till morning's latest sunlight fades 
On the blue tablet of the deep. 



,•- 



THE POWER OF ELOQUENCE. 465 



Thought without Utter cmce.—Tm>n*. 

Come, I will show thee an affliction unnumbered among this 
world's sorrows, 

Yet real, and wearisome, and constant, embittering the cup of 
life. 

There be who can think within themselves, and the fire burneth 
at their heart, 

And eloquence waiteth at their lips, yet they speak not with 
their tongue ; 

There be whom zeal quickeneth, or slander stirreth to reply, 

Jr need constraineth to ask, or pity sendeth as her messengers, 

But nervous dread and sensitive shame freeze the current of 
their speech ; 

The mouth is sealed as with lead, a cold weight presseth on the 
heart, 

The mocking promise of power is once more broken in per- 
formance, 

And they stand impotent of words, travailing with unborn 
thoughts ; 

Courage is cowed at the portal ; wisdom is widowed of utter- 
ance ; 

He that went to comfort is pitied; he that should rebuke is 
silent ; 

And fools, who might listen and learn, stand by to look and laugh ■ 

While friends, with kinder eyes, wound deeper by compassion, 

And thought, finding not a vent, smouldereth, gnawing at the 
heart, 

And the man sinketh in his sphere, for lack of empty sounds. 

There be many cares and sorrows thou hast not yet considered, 

And well may thy soul rejoice in the fair privilege of speech ; 

For at every turn to want a word, — thou canst not guess that 
want; 

It is as lack of breath or bread : life hath no grief more galling. 



The Power of Eloquence,— Tuppbb. 

Come, I will tell thee of a joy which the parasites of pleasure 

have not known, 
Though earth, and air, and sea have gorged all the appetites of 

sense. 

80 



466 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Benold, what fka is in his eye, what fervor on his cheek ! 
That glorious burst of winged words ! — how bound they from 

his tongue ! 
The full expression of the mighty thought, the strong, triumphant 

argument, 
The rush of native eloquence, resistless as Niagara, 
The keen demand, the clear reply, the fine poetic image, 
The nice analogy, the clinching fact, the metaphor bold and free > 
The grasp of concentrated intellect wielding the omnipotence of 

truth, 
The grandeur of his speech, in his majesty of mind ! 
Champion of the right, — patriot, or priest, or pleader of the 

innocent cause, 
Jpon whose lips the mystic bee hath dropped the honey of per- 
suasion, 
Whose heart and tongue have been touched, as of old, by the 

live coal from the altar, 
How wide the spreading of thy peace, how deep the draught of 

thy pleasures ! 
To hold the multitude as one, breathing in measured cadence ; 
A thousand men, with flashing eyes, waiting upon thy will ; 
A thousand hearts kindled by thee with consecrated fire ; 
Ten flaming spiritual hecatombs offered on the mount of God : 
And now a pause, a thrilling pause, — they live but in th) 

words, — 
Thou hast broken the bounds of self, as the Nile at its rising. 
Thou art expanded into them, one faith, one hope, one spirit ; 
They breathe but in thy breath, their minds are passive unto 

thine, 
Thou turnest the key of their love, bending their affections to 

thy purpose, 
And all, in sympathy with thee, tremble with tumultuous emotions. 
Verily, O man, with truth for thy theme, eloquence shall throne 

thee with archangels. 



Trifles. — Tupper. 

Yet once more, saith the fool, yet once, and is it not a little one ? 
Spare me this folly yet an hour, for what is one among so 

many ? 
And he blindeth his conscience with lies, and stupefieth his neart 

with doubts. 



THE GOOD MAN. 467 

Whom shall I harm in this matter ? and a little ill breedeth 

much good ; 
My thoughts, are they not mine own ? and they leave no mark 

behind them ; 
And if God so pardoneth crime, how should these petty sins 

affect him ? — 
So he transgresseth yet again, and falleth by little and little, 
Till the ground crumble beneath him, and he sinketh in the gulf 

despairing. 
For there is nothing in the earth so small that it may not produce 

great things, 
And no swerving from a right line, that may not lead eternally 

astray. 
A landmark tree was once a seed ; and the dust in the balance 

maketh a difference ; 
And the cairn is heaped high by each one flinging a pebble ; 
The dangerous bar in the harbor's mouth is only grains of sand ; 
And the shoal that hath wrecked a navy is the work of a colony 

of worms ; 
Yea, and a despicable gnat may madden the mighty elephant ; 
And the living rock is worn by the diligent flow of the brook. 
Little art thou, O man, and in trifles thou contendest with thine 

equals, 
For atoms must crowd upon atoms, ere crime groweth to be a 

giant. 
What, is thy servant a dog ? — not yet wilt thou grasp the dagger, 
Not yet wilt thou laugh with the scoffers, not yet betray the 

innocent ; 
But if thou nourish in thy heart the reveries of injury or passion, 
And travel in mental heat the mazy labyrinths of guilt, 
And then conceive it possible, and then reflect on it as done, 
And use, by little and little, thyself to regard thyself a villain, 
Not long will crime be absent from the voice that doth invoke 

him to thy heart, 
And bitterly wilt thou grieve, that the buds have ripened into 

poison. 



The Good Man. — Tttffhb. 

Angels are round the good man, to catch the incense of his 

prayers, 
And they fly to minister kindness to those for whom he 

pleadeth ; 



468 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

For the altar of his heart is lighted, and burnetii before God 

continually, 
And he breatheth, conscious of his joy, the native atmosphere of 

heaven ; 
Yea, though poor, and contemned, and ignorant of this world's 

wisdom, 
111 can his fellows spare him, though they know not of his 

value. 
Thousands bewail a hero, and a nation mourneth for its king, 
But the whole universe lamenteth the loss of a man of prayer. 
Verily, were it not for One, who sitteth on his rightful throne, 
Crowned with a rainbow of emerald, the green memorial of 

earth, — 
For one, a meditating man, that hath clad his Godhead with 

mortality, 
And offereth prayer without ceasing, the royal priest of Na- 
ture, 
Matter, and life, and mind had sunk into dark annihilation, 
And the lightning frown of Justice withered the world into nothing. 



What the Public School House says.— Chapin. 

It says to the poorest child, " You are rich in this one endow- 
ment, before which all external possessions grow dim. No piled- 
up wealth, no social station, no throne reaches as high as that 
spiritual plane upon which every human being stands, by virtue 
of his humanity ; and from that plane, mingled now in the com- 
mon school with the lowliest and lordliest, we give you the 
opportunity to ascend as high as you may. We put into your 
hands the key of knowledge ; leaving your religious convictions, 
with which we dare not interfere, to your chosen guides. So far 
as the intellectual path may lead, it is open to you. Go free ! " 
And when we consider the great principles which are thus prac- 
tically confessed, when we consider the vast consequences which 
grow out of this, I think that little district school house dilates, 
grows splendid, makes our hearts beat with admiration and grati- 
tude, makes us resolve that at all events that must stand ; for, 
indeed, it is one of the noblest symbols of the republic — a sign 
and an instrument of a great people, having great power. 



THE THREE BLACK CROWS. 



The Three Black Crows.— Bybom. 

Two honest tradesmen meeting in the Strand, 

One took the other briskly by the hand : 

" Hark ye," said he ; " 'tis an odd story this, 

About the crows ! " "I don't know what it is," 

Replied his friend. " No ! I'm surprised at that 

Where I come from, it is the common chat. 

But you shall hear ; an odd affair indeed ! 

And that it happened they are all agreed. 

Not to detain you from a thing so strange, 

A gentleman, that lives not far from 'Change, 

This week, in short, as all the alley knows, 

Taking a puke, has thrown up three black crows." 

" Impossible ! " " Nay, but it's really true ; 

I had it from good hands, and so may you." 

" From whose, I pray ? " So having named the man, 

Straight to inquire his curious comrade ran. 

" Sir, did you tell," — relating the affair. — 

" Yes, sir, I did ; and if it's worth your care, 

Ask Mr. Such-a-one ; he told it me ; 

But, by the by, 'twas two black crows, not three." 

Resolved to trace so wondrous an event, 

Whip to the third the virtuoso went. 

" Sir," — and so forth. — " Why, yes ; the thing is fact, 

Though in regard to number not exact ; 

It was not two black crows ; 'twas only one ; 

The truth of that you may depend upon. 

The gentleman himself told me the case." 

" Where may I find him ? " " Why, in such a place." 

Away he goes, and having found him out, — 

" Sir, be so good as to resolve a doubt." 

Then to his last informant he referred, 

And begged to know if true what he had heard. 

" Did you, sir, throw up a black crow ? " " Not I ! " 

44 Bless me ! how people propagate a lie ! 

Black crows have been thrown up, three, two, and one, 

And here I find, at last, all comes to none ! 

Did you say nothing of a crow at all ? " 

" Crow — crow — perhaps I might, now I recall 

The matter over." " And pray, sir, what was't ? " 

44 Why, I was horrid sick, and, at the last, 

I did throw up, and told my neighbors so, 

Something that was as black, sir, as a crow." 



470 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



Turn the Carpet— Hannah Mom. 

As at their work two weavers sat, 
Beguiling time with friendly chat, 
They touched upon the price of meat, 
So high a weaver scarce could eat. 
" What with my brats and sickly wife," 
Quoth Dick, " I'm almost tired of life ? 
So hard my work, so poor my fare, 
'Tis more than mortal man can bear. 

" How glorious is the rich man's state ! 
His house so fine, his wealth so great; 
Heaven is unjust, you must agree. 
Why all to him ? why none to me ? 
In spite of what the Scripture teaches, 
In spite of all the parson preaches, 
This world (indeed, I've thought so long) 
Is ruled, methinks, extremely wrong. 
Where'er I look, howe'er I range, 
'Tis all confused, and hard, and strange ; 
The good are troubled and oppressed. 
And all the wicked are the blessed." 

Quoth John, " Our ignorance is the cause 
Why thus we blame our Maker's laws. 
Parts of his ways alone we know ; 
'Tis all that man can see below. 
Seest thou that carpet, not half done, 
Which thou, dear Dick, hast well begun? 
Behold the wild confusion there ; 
So rude the mass, it makes one stare. 
A stranger, ignorant of the trade, 
Would say, no meaning's there conveyed ; 
For where's the middle ? where's the border? 
Thy carpet now is all disorder." 

Quoth Dick, " My work is yet in bits, 
But still in every part it fits ; 
Beside, you reason like a lout ; 
Why, man, that carpet's inside out ! " 
Says John, " Thou say'st the thing I mean, 
And now I hope to cure thy spleen. 



NATURAL WORLD INFERIOR TO THE MORAL, tf} 

This world, which clouda thy soul with doubt, 
Is but a carpet inside out 

" As when we view these shreds and ends, 
We know not what the whole intends, 
So, when on earth things look but odd, 
They're working still some scheme of God. 
No plan, no pattern can we trace ; 
All wants proportion, truth, and grace ; 
The motley mixture we deride, 
Nor see the beauteous upper side. 

" But when we reach that world of light, 

And view those works of God aright, 

Then shall we see the whole design, 

And own the Workman is divine. 

What now seem random strokes will there 

All order and design appear ; 

Then shall we praise what here we spurned ; 

For then the carpet shall be turned." 

" Thou'rt right," quoth Dick ; " no more I'll grumble 

That this sad world's so strange a jumble ; 

My impious doubts are put to flight, 

For my own carpet sets me right." 



The Natural World inferior to the Moral 
World* — Gkimxb. 

Man, the noblest work of God in this lower world, walks 
abroad through its labyrinths of grandeur and beauty, amid 
countless manifestations of creative power and providential wis- 
dom. He acknowledges, in all that he beholds, the might that 
called them into being, the skill which perfected the harmony 
of the parts, and the benevolence which consecrated all to the 
glory of God and the welfare of his fellow -creatures. He stands 
entranced on the peak of Etna, or TenerifTe, or Montserrat, and 
looks down upon the far distant ocean, silent to his ear, and tran- 
quil to his eye, amid the rushing of tempestuous winds, and the 
fierce conflict of stormy billows. He sits enraptured on the 
mountain summit, and beholds, as far as the eye can reach, 
a forest robe, flowing, in all the varieties of graceful undula- 
tions, over declivity after declivity, as though the fabulous river 



472 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

of the skies were pouring its azure waves over all the land 
scape. 

He hangs over the precipice, and gazes with awful delight on 
the savage glen, rent open, as it were, by the earthquake, and 
black with lightning-shattered rocks ; its only music the echoing 
thunder, the scream of the lonely eagle, and the tumultuous 
waters of the mountain torrent. He reclines, in pensive mood, 
on the hill top, and sees around and beneath him all the luxuri- 
ant beauties of field and meadow, of olive yard and vineyard, of 
wandering stream and grove-encircled lake. He descends to the 
plain, and amid waving harvests, verdant avenues, and luxuriant 
orchards, sees, between garden and grass plat, the farm house, 
embosomed in copse wood or " tall ancestral trees." He walks 
through the valley, fenced in by barrier cliffs, to contemplate, 
with mild enthusiasm, its scenes of pastoral beauty — the cottage 
and its blossomed arbor, the shepherd and his flock, the clumps 
of oaks or the solitary willow. He enters the caverns buried fai 
beneath the surface, and is struck with amazement at the gran- 
deur and magnificence of a subterranean palace, hewn out, as it 
were, by the power of the genii, and decorated by the taste of 
Armida, or of the queen of the fairies. 

Such is the natural world ; and such, for the most part, has it 
ever been, since men began to subdue the wilderness, to scatter 
the ornaments of civilization amid the rural scenery of nature, 
and to plant the lily on the margin of the deep, the village on the 
hill side, and martial battlements in the defiles of the mountains. 
Such has been the natural world, whether beheld by the eye of 
savage or barbarian, of the civilized or the refined. Such has it 
been, for the most part, whether contemplated by the harpers of 
Greece, the bards of Northern Europe, or the voluptuous min- 
strels of the Troubadour age. Such it was when its beauties, like 
scattered stars, beamed on the page of classic lore ; and such, 
when its " sunshine of picture " poured a flood of meridian 
splendor on modern literature. Such is the natural world to the 
ancient and the modern, the pagan and the Christian. 

Admirable as the natural world is for its sublimity and beauty, 
who would compare it, even for an instant, with the sublimity 
and beauty of the moral world ? Is not the soul, with its glorious 
destiny and its capacities for eternal happiness, more awful and 
majestic than the boundless Pacific or the interminable Andes ? 
Is not the mind, with its thoughts that wander through eternity, 
and its wealth of intellectual power, an object of more intense 
interest than forest, or cataract, or precipice ? And the heart, 
bo eloquent in the depth, purity, and pathos of its affections, — rate 



SLANDER. 47? 

the richest scenery of hill and dale, can the melody of breeze, 
and brook, and bird, rival it in loveliness ? 

The same God is the Author of the invisible and visible world. 
The moral grandeur and beauty of the world of man are equally 
the productions of his wisdom and goodness with the fair, the 
sublime, the wonderful in the physical creation. What, indeed, 
are these but the outward manifestations of his might, skill, and 
benevolence? What are they but a glorious volume, forever 
speaking to the eye and ear of man, in the language of sight and 
sound, the praises of its Author ? And what are those but images, 
faint and imperfect as they are, of his own incomprehensible 
attributes ? What are they, the soul, the mind, the heart of an 
immortal being, but the temple of the Holy Spirit, the dwelling 
place of Him whom the heaven of heavens can not contain, who 
inhabiteth eternity ? How, then, can we compare, even for a 
moment, the world of nature with the world of man ? 



Slander, —Mrs. Osgood. 

A whisper woke the air — 
A soft, light tone, and low, 

Yet barbed with shame and woe. 

Now might it only perish there, 
Nor farther go ! 

Ah me ! a quick and eager ear 

Caught up the little meaning sound; 

Another voice has breathed it clear, 
And so it wanders round 

From ear to lip, from lip to ear, 

Until it reached a gentle heart, 
And that it broke. 

It was the only heart it found, 
The only heart 'twas meant to find, 

When fW its accents woke : 
It reached tnat tender heart at last, 

And that it broke. 

Low as it seemed to others' ears, 
It came a thunder crash to hers — 



474 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

That fragile girl, so fair and gay — 
That guileless girl, so pure and true ! 

'Tis said a lovely humming bird, 
That in a fragrant lily lay, 
And dreamed the summer morn away 
Was killed but by the gun's report 
Some idle boy had fired in sport ! 

The very sound — a death blow came ! 

And thus her happy heart, that beat, 
With love and hope, so fast and sweet, 
(Shrined in its lily too — 
For who the maid that knew 
But owned the delicate, flower-like grace 
Of her young form and face ?) 
When first that word 
Her light heart heard, 
It fluttered like the frightened bird, 
Then shut its wings and sighed, 
And with a silent shudder died. 



Self-made Men. 

Who rule the destinies of this nation, both in church and 
state ? The descendants of high families ? No. The actual 
nobility of America are " novi homines " — self-originaied men. 
Show me the Hamiltons, the Jacksons, and the Clays, who in 
their turn have been lords of the ascendant in the republic, and 
I will show you men who were flung into life under circumstances 
that required them to depend upon their own resources. The 
energy and decision of character that bore them on to the highest 
elevations of political life was an energy they acquired in over- 
coming early difficulties and discouragements. The brilliancy 
that gleamed along their career of glory was reflected from armor 
brightened by early use, and burnished by the wear of battle. 
Hercules began his godlike labors in the cradle. And the cour- 
age of the child that strangled the serpents was both a pledge 
and preparation for the boldness of the hero that bearded the 
Nemean lion in his den. 

Who possess the wealth and direct the business enterprise of 
the country? Not the men who were born rich, but those who 



THE INCHCAPE ROCK. 475 

were early disciplined by necessity to habits of active industry 
and economy. There is in this respect a constant revolution in 
the nation. The patrician families of the last generation become 
plebeians in the present ; and vice versa, the children of parents 
who were not worth a dollar now hold the purse strings of th*» 
nation. 



The Inchcape Rock,— Sottthht. 

No stir in the air, no swell on the sea — 
The ship was still as she might be ; 
The sails from heaven received no motion ; 
The keel was steady in the ocean. 

Without either sign or sound of their shock, 
The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock ; 
So little they rose, so little they fell, 
They did not move the Inchcape bell. 

The pious abbot of Aberbrothock 
Had placed the bell on the Inchcape Rock ; 
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung, 
And over the waves its warning rung. 

When the rock was hid by the surge's swell, 
The mariners heard the warning bell ; 
And then they knew the perilous rock, 
And blessed the abbot of Aberbrothock. 

The sun in heaven was shining gay ; 

All things were joyful on that day ; 

The sea birds screamed as they wheeled around, 

And there was joyance in the sound. 

The float of the Inchcape bell was seen, 
A darker spot on the ocean green ; 
Sir Ralph the Rover walked the deck, 
And he fixed his eye on the darker speck. 

He felt the cheering power of spring ; 
It made him whistle, it made him sing ; 
His heart was mirthful to excess, 
But the Rover's mirth was wickedness. 



4% KOSS'S SPEAKER. 

His eye was on the Inchcape float ; 
Quoth he, u My men, put out the boat, 
And row me to the Inchcape Rock ; 
I'll plague the priest of Aberbrothock." 

The boat is lowered, the boatmen row, 
And to the Inchcape Rock they go ; 
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat, 
And cut the bell from the Inchcape float. 

Down sank the bell with a gurgling sound; 
The bubbles rose and burst around ; 
Quoth he, " Who next comes to the rock 
Won't bless the priest of Aberbrothock." 

Sir Ralph the Rover sailed away ; 
He scoured the sea for many a day ; 
And now, grown rich with plundered store, 
He steers his way for Scotland's shore. 

So thick a haze o'erspread the sky, 
They can not see the sun on high ; 
The wind hath blown a gale all day ; 
At evening it hath died away. 

On the deck the Rover takes his stand ; 
So dark it is they see no land ; 
Quoth Sir Ralph, " It will be lighter soon, 
For there is the dawn of the rising moon." 

" Canst hear," said one, " the breakers roar ? 
For yonder, methinks, should be the shore ; 
Now, where we are I can not tell ; 
But I wish I could hear the Inchcape bell." 

Tfeey hear no sound : the swell is strong ; 
Though the wind hath fallen, they drift along, 
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock : 
O heavens ! it is the Inchcape Rock. 

Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair ; 
He cursed himself in his despair : 
The waves rush in on every side, 
And the ship is gone beneath the tide. 



THE DEAR-BOUGHT VICTORY. 47? 



Moral Courage. 

[Sydney Smith, in his work on moral philosophy, speaks in this wise 
of what men lose for want of a little moral courage, or independence of 
mind.] 

A gbeat deal of talent is lost in the world for the want of a 
little courage. Every day sends to their graves a number of 
obscure men, who have only remained in obscurity because their 
timidity has prevented them from making a first effort, and who, 
if they could have been induced to begin, would, in all probability, 
have gone great lengths in the career of fame. The fact is, 
that, to do any thing in this world worth doing, we must not stand 
back shivering, and thinking of the cold and the danger, but 
jump in, and scramble through as well as we can. It will not 
do to be perpetually calculating tasks, and adjusting nice chances ; 
it did very well before the flood, when a man could consult his 
friends upon an intended publication for a hundred and fifty 
years, and then live to see its success afterward ; but at present 
a man waits, and doubts, and hesitates, and consults his brother, 
and his uncle, and particular friends, till one fine day he finds 
that he is sixty years of age — that he has lost so much time in 
consulting his first cousins and particular friends, that he has no 
more time to follow their advice. 



The Dear-bought Victory.— anon. 

Within a balcony of state, 

At ease, and happy beyond measure, 
A monkey sat, who had of late 

Become the master of a treasure ; — 

Though not, indeed, of gems or gold, — 
Mark ! I relate it to the letter, — 

But fresh, sweet nuts, which, I'll be bold, 
Friend Pug esteemed as something better. 

These in a sack he tied with care, 
For other monkeys, by the dozen, 

Came flocking round, in hopes to share 
The rich possessions of their cousin. 
V 



478 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

They thronged beneath, in greedy train, 
The balcony, where he was seated, 

But quickly found 'twas all in vain 

They reasoned, menaced, or entreated. 

For Pug, however rich in fruit, 

Appeared in bounty greatly lacking, 

And flung, in answer to their suit, 

The shells of nuts which he'd been cracking. 

At this the suppliants, filled with rage, 
Resolved to sue to him no longer, 

But battle now prepared to wage, 

As they in numbers were the stronger. 

The monkey, on this rude attack, 

Although he thought the means expensive, 

Without ado, untied his sack, 

And turned his nuts to arms offensive. 

Pug, with the missives, aimed his blows 
So hard and fast, that, in conclusion, 

His smarting and bepelted foes 
Fled off in cowardly confusion. 

At length he proudly stood alone, 

With feelings that of rapture savored, 

Prepared to thank, in joyous tone, 

Dame Fortune, who his cause had favored,— 

That he had from the fierce attack 
His precious nuts so well defended, 

But cast his eyes upon his sack, 

And saw that they were all expended. 

Through these he had maintained his place ; 

And, now his foes had all retreated, 
He stood precisely in the case 

As if himself had been defeated. 

Thus oft we see a triumph cost 
As much as if the dav were lost. 



TIME. WHAT IS TIME. 479 



Time*— Anon. 

I" Time "will end our story ; 
But no time, if we end well, will end our glory." 

1 saw a temple, reared by the hands of man, standing with its 
high pinnacle in the distant plain. The streams beat upon it — 
the God of nature hurled his thunderbolts against it, and yet it 
stood firm as adamant. Revelry was in its halls ; the gay, the 
happy, the young and beautiful were there. I returned, and lo, 
the temple was no more ! its high walls lay in scattered ruins ; 
moss and wild grass grew rankly there ; and at the midnight 
hour, the hooting of the owl added to the deep solitude which 
reigned around. The young and gay who reveled there had 
passed away. 

I saw a child rejoicing in his youth, the idol of his mother and 
the pride of his father. I returned, and that child had become 
old. Trembling with the weight of years, he stood the last of 
his generation, a stranger amid the desolation around him. 

I saw a flourishing oak in all its pride upon the mountain ; the 
birds were caroling among the boughs. I returned ; it was leaf- 
less and sapless, and the winds were playing at their pastime 
through its branches. 

" Who is this destroyer ? " said I to my guardian angel. M It 
is Time," said he. When the morning stars sang together with 
joy over the new-made world, he commenced his course ; and 
when he shall have destroyed all that is beautiful of the earth, 
plucked the sun from his sphere, veiled the moon in blood, — 
yes, when he shall have rolled the heavens and the earth away 
as a scroll, — then shall an angel from the throne of God come 
forth, and, one foot on the sea and one on the land, lift up his 
hand toward heaven, and swear by heaven's Eternal — *'• Time 
is, time was, but time shall be no longer." 



What is Time.— Mabsdxn. 

1 asked an aged man, a man of cares, 
Wrinkled, and curved, and white with hoary hairs : 
" Time is the warp of life," he said ; " O, tell 
The young, the fair, the gay, to weave it veil." 



480 "ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

I asked the ancient, venerable dead, 
Sages who wrote, and warriors who bled : 
From the cold grave a hollow murmur flowed, 
" Time sowed the seed we reap in this abode ! * 

I asked the dying sinner,, ere the tide 

Of life had left his veins. " Time ! " he replied — 

" I've lost it ! Ah, the treasure ! " and he died. 

I asked a spirit lost ; but O, the shriek 

That pierced my soul ! I shudder while I speak. 

It cried, " A particle, a speck, a mite 

Of endless years, duration infinite ! " 

I asked my Bible ; and methinks it said, 
" Time is the present hour ; the past is fled ; 
Live — live to-day : to-morrow never yet 
On any human being rose or set." 

I asked old Father Time himself, at last ; 
But in a moment he flew swiftly past ; 
His chariot was a cloud, the viewless wind 
His noiseless steeds, which left no trace behind. 

I asked the mighty angel who shall stand 

One foot on sea and one on solid land : 

" I now declare ; the mystery is o'er ; 

Time was," he cried, " but Time shall be no more ! '* 



The Prayer less One, — Anon. 

He never prays ! The God of heaven has watched 

O'er all his steps, and with that careful eye 

Which never sleeps, has guarded him from death, 

And shielded him from danger. Through the hours, 

The thoughtless hours, of youth, a hand unseen 

Has guarded all his footsteps o'er the wild 

And thorny paths of life, and led him on 

In safety through them all. In latter days, 

Still the same hand has ever been his guard 

From dangers seen and unseen. Clouds have lowered. 

And tempests oft have burst above his head, 



THE PRAYERLESS ONE 48, 

But that protecting hand has warded off 

The thunder strokes of death ; and still he stands 

A monument of mercy. Years have passed, 

Of varied dangers and of varied guilt, 

But still the sheltering wings of love have been 

Outspread in mercy over him. He hath walked 

Upon the beauteous earth for many years, 

And skies, and stars, and the magnificence 

Of mighty waters, and the warning voice 

That speaks amid the tempest, and the notes 

Of softer tone that float on evening winds — 

All these have told him of a God that claims 

The homage of the soul. And he has lived, 

And viewed them in their glory as they stood, 

The workmanship of God ; and there was breathed 

Around him, even from infancy a voice 

That told of mercy bending o'er him 

With looks of angel sweetness, and of power 

Resistless in its going forth ; but stayed 

By that seraphic mercy still he stands 

Cold and unfeeling as the rock that braves 

The ocean billows : still he never prays ! 

He never prays. A lonely wanderer cast 

On life's wild, thorny desert, urging on 

His heedless steps through many a secret snare 

And many a danger. Darkness closes round 

His dubious path, save here and there a ray 

That flits along the gloom ; but still he seems 

From some bewildered meteor of the night 

To ask for guidance and direction still. 

He never prays ! 
Earth's many voices send their songs 
Of grateful praise up to the throne 
Of the Eternal ; morning, noon, and night, 
On every side around him, swell the notes 
Of adoration, gratitude, and joy ; 
The lark, the grove, the valley, and the hill, 
Swell the loud chorus ; and some happy hearts, 
Redeemed from error, and restored to peace 
And blest communion with the Holy One, 
Join in the glad, the humble, blissful strain , 
But still — he never prays. 
31 



482 BOSS'S SPEAKER. 

When Evening spreads 
Her solemn shades around him, and the world 
Grows dim upon his eye, and many stars 
Scattered in glory o'er the vault of heaven, 
Call on the spirit to retire a while 
From earth and its low vanities, and seek 
The high and holy intercourse with God 
Vouchsafed to mortals here — he never prays. 

When morning kindles in the eastern sky, 
With all its radiant glory, and the sun 
Comes up in majesty, and o'er the earth 
Wakes all her active tribes to active life, 
And breaks the death-like solitude that reigned 
Erewhile o'er Nature's face, — when on his eye 
Earth smiles in beauty 'neath the lucid ray, 
And feathered songsters pour their strains of joy 
Upon his ear, — still not a note of praise 
Or humble prayer arises from his lips. 
Morn after morn returns to all its sweet 
And peaceful loveliness, and oft invites 
His spirit to commune with God ; but still 
He spurns the offer — still he never prays. 

Short is the dream of Life. Its days of care, 
Its hours of pleasure, soon will pass away ; 
And on the wondering eye shall pour the broad, 
Unceasing splendor of Eternity. 
O, when the scenes of life have faded all 
Like morning visions, and my spirit stands 
Before the judgment throne, and finds its deeds, 
And words, and thoughts all registered in heaven, 
Then may it not be found recorded there 
Of me — He never prays. 



Wealth. — E. A. Nisbbt. 

Who does not honor the princely dispenser of good gifts, and 
the royal reliever of many wants ? It is his vocation to bless, 
and his privilege to receive benedictions. Under his auspices 
the artist fights his way to distinction, the poet scales the summit 
of Parnassus, he scholar vanquishes the resistance of science, 



MILITARY GLORY. 483 

and the church builds her altars and dedicates her temples. 
There is another class of Mammon's worshipers, whose desires 
for gold are more inordinate than Caesar's for dominion, and 
less scrupulous than Napoleon's for empire Tc amass it, all 
energies are strained, all appetites conquered, all principle ban- 
ished, and all honesty discarded. 

And it is not for its enjoyments, its independence, or its power ; 
it is simply to be conscious of coin, and cognizant of dollars ; to 
reign upon 'Change and to be pointed at upon the Rialto ; to 
preside over an estate, like the spirit of opulence o'er the caverns 
of Potosi, or the genius of avarice o'er the pits of Golconda. He 
whose only ambition it is to be rich, even for the innocent pleas- 
ures money can give, is greeted with but little respect, although 
he may induce no censure. Whilst he who acquires gain in 
order to dispense its blessings to the poor, or to furnish the 
means of full, untrammeled action to enlarged intelligence and 
xpansive benevolence, is loved by all and condemned by none. 
He is the steward of God's mercies, and the agent of his 
Jivine beneficence. But he from whom pity can not wring a 
pittance, or famine a crumb, or friendship a token, is of all men 
the most supremely contemptible, and of all small things the 
most diminutively little. 



Military Glory. — E. a. Nisbbt. 

No glory is more dazzling to the ardent imagination of youth 
than that which encircles the name of a successful warrior. 
The battle field is the scene of valor and chivalry, of mental 
energy and personal hazard, and therefore inviting to the bold 
and adventurous. Proud is the heart, and exulting the step, of 
the captain returning from conquest. For him the " welkin 
rings " with plaudits, to him the senate decrees the triumph, and 
around him hover the warm affections of the grateful fair. 

Honors cluster upon his brow, the wreath is plaited to entwine 
him, the garland is woven to crown him, and to his memory 
rises the monument to meet the distant ages in their coming. 
There is magic in the dancing plume, there is safety in the glit- 
tering blade, and there is love in the hero's heart. War is an 
evil, and soldiers are but necessary evils. Yet military ambition 
should not always be indulged. War has its origin in the worst 
passions of our nature, and the most consuming ills follow in its 
train. The feuds of individuals and the conflicts of national 



484 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

interest generate strife ; the tocsin is sounded, tfie hosts are 
marshaled, and the battle is lost and won ; yet who shall estimate 
the woe which the day of victory brings r 

The laurel of the victor is steeped in the tears of widowhood, 
and embalmed in the groans of orphanage ; and the fame of his 
exploits is heralded in the last agonies of expiring thousands. It 
may be the struggle has rescued an empire from bondage, and 
redeemed a nation from slavery. If so, the contest is holy, and 
the victor should be canonized. It may be that it forges chains 
for millions, overturns the foundations of civil liberty, and strikes 
free states from the catalogue of sovereignties. If so, the fight 
is unhallowed, and the victor should be damned. 

Wars most frequently spring from the selfish ambition of indi- 
viduals, from the rivalry and wrath of party leaders. Parties 
are formed, the foundations of society are moved, and the people 
rage. Some daring spirit rises upon the tide, and directs its 
flow ; with right, liberty, and law upon his tongue, and a crown 
in his heart, he stirs the prejudices, inflames the passions, and 
arouses the vengeance of the multitude. 

At length the blow is struck, and the law, the church, and the 
altar sink ; from the fountain of civil broil gushes out the stream 
of blood, and rapid and turgid it rolls its desolating flood over 
private faith and public weal. The bark of state drifts wildly 
away into the ocean of anarchy, shoreless, dark, and tempestuous. 

But the clouds pass away, the sky is serene, and its orb re- 
fulgent ; the din of battle dies in the distance, and deep as the 
sleep of eternity is the silence that broods over the state. Is 
this the quiet of liberty and law ? Ah, no ! it is the lethargic 
stupor of despotism. Such are the fruits of war, and such the 
results of unchastened military ambition. Dearer by far to me 
is the garland which adorns the brow of the civilian, than the 
laurel which encircles the head of the warrior. 



Memory.— w. M. Pbahd. 

Stand on a funeral mound, 

Far from all that love thee, 
With a barren heath around, 

With a cypress bower above thee, 
And think, while the sad wind frets, 

And the night in cold gloom closes, 
Of spring, and spring's sweet violets, 

Of summer, and summer's roses. 



BRIERS AND BERRIES. 4M 

Sleep where the thunders fly 

Across the tossing billow ; 
Thy canopy the sky, 

And the lonely deck thy pillow ; 
And dream, while the chill sea foam 

In mockery dashes o'er thee, 
Of the cheerful hearth, and the quiet home.. 

And the kiss of her that bore thee. 

Watch in the deepest cell 

Of the foeman's dungeon tower, 
Till hope's most cherished spell 

Has lost its cheering power ; 
And sing, while the galling chain 

On every stiff limb freezes, 
Of the huntsman hurrying o'er the plain, 

Of the breath of the morning breezes. 

Talk of the minstrel's lute, 

The warrior's high endeavor, 
When the honeyed lips are mute, 

And the strong arm crushed forever ; 
Look back to the summer sun, 

From the mist of dark December ; 
Then say to the broken-hearted one, 

" 'Tis pleasant to remember." 



Briers and Berries. — Bbowm. 

'Twas on a gloomy, smoky day, 

If rightly I the date remember, — 
for certainly I cannot say, — 

About the middle of September, 
When I, astride my pacing gray, 
Was plodding on my weary way, 
To spend the night, and preach the word 
To people who had never heard 
The gospel ; or, to say the least, 
Had never viewed it as a feast 
Of fat things, full of marrow. 



186 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

In sadness, as I rode along, 

And crossed the silver Unadilla, 
The robin sung his plaintive song.. 

And faintly drooped the fading lily , 
The smoky sky, no longer blue, 

Assumed a dim and dusky gray, 
And autumn o'er my feelings threw 

The coloring of its own decay, 
And filled my heart with sorrow. 

I, in my mind, was pondering o'er 

The miseries that beset the preacher — 
The persecutions which he bore, 

The scoff and scorn of every creature ; 
His heated brain, his frame worn down, 

Emaciated, and dyspeptic ; 
The hardened bigot's iron frown, 

The jeers and satire of the skeptic ; 
One mocking revelation's page, 

The other ridiculing reason ; 
And then the storms we must engage, 

And all th' inclemencies of season. 

In this desponding, gloomy mood, 

I rode, perhaps, a mile or two, 
When, lo ! beside the way there stood 

A little girl, with eyes of blue, 
Light hair, and cheeks as red as cherries ; 

And through the briers, with much ado, 
She wrought her way to pick the berries. 

Quoth I, " My little girl, it seems 
To me you buy your berries dear ; 

For down your hand the red blood streams, 
And down your cheek there rolls a tear." 

" O, yes," said she ; " but then, you know, 

There will be briers where berries grow." 

These words came home with keen rebuke 
To me, who mourned life's little jostles, 

And called to mind the things that Luke 
Has written of the first apostles, 

Who faced the foe without a fear, 

And counted even life not dear. 



THE FALL OF JERUSALEM 487 

And since, from that good hour to this, 
Come pleasant or come stormy weather, 

I still reflect, that human bliss 

And human woe are mixed together ; 

Come smiling friend or frowning foe — 

" There will be briers where berries grow." 



The Fall of Jerusalem. — Ckolt. 

4C Tr & abomination of desolation," the pagan standard, was 
fixed where it was to remain until the plow had passed over 
the ruins of Jerusalem. On this fatal night no man laid his 
head on his pillow. Heaven and earth were in conflict. Meteors 
burned above us ; the ground shook under our feet ; the volcano 
blazed ; the wind burst forth in irresistible blasts, and swept the 
living and the dead, in whirlwinds, far into the desert. We 
heard the bellowing of the distant Mediterranean, as if its waters 
were at our side, swelled by the deluge. The lakes and rivers 
roared, and inundated the land. The fiery sword shot out ten- 
fold fire. Thunder pealed from every quarter of the heavens. 
Lightning, in immense sheets, of an intensity and duration that 
turned the darkness into more than day, withering eye and soul, 
burned from the zenith to the ground, and marked his track by 
forests of flame, and shattered the summits of the hills. 

I knew the cause, the unspeakable cause ; and knew that the 
last hour of crime was at hand. A few fugitives, astonished to 
see one man among them not sunk into the lowest feebleness of 
fear, came around me, and besought me to lead them to some 
safety, if such were now to be found on earth. I openly coun- 
selled them to die in the hallowed ground of the temple. They 
followed, and I led, through streets encumbered with every shape 
of human suffering, to the foot of Mount Moriah. But beyond 
that we found advance impossible. Piles of clouds whose dark- 
ness was palpable, even in the midnight in which we stood, 
obscured the holy hill. Impatient, and not to be daunted by 
any thing that man could overcome, I cheered my disheartened 
band, and attempted to lead the way up the ascent. But I had 
scarcely entered the cloud, when I was swept down by a gust 
that tore the rocks in a flinty shower around me. And now 
came the last and most wonderful sign that marked the fate of 
rejected Israel. 

While I lay helpless, I heard the whirlwind roar through the 



48^ ROSS'S SPEAKER, 

cloudy hill, and the vapors began to revolve. A pale light, like 
that of the rising moon, quivered on their edges, and the clouds 
rose rapidly, shaping themselves into forms of battlements and 
towers. The sound of voices was heard within, low and distinct, 
yet strangely sweet. Still the luster brightened, and as the airy 
building rose, tower on tower and ■ battlement on battlement, we 
knelt and gazed on this more than mortal architecture, that 
continued rising, and spreading, and glowing with a serener 
light, still soft and silvery, yet to which the broadest moonbeam 
was dim. At last it stood forth from earth to heaven, the colossal 
image of the first temple — of the building raised by the wisest 
of men, and consecrated to the visible glory. 

All Jerusalem saw the image, and the shout that, in the midst 
of their despair, ascended from its thousands and tens of thou- 
sands, told what proud remembrances that wore. But a hymn 
was heard that might have hushed the world beside. Never fell 
on my ear, never on human sense, a sound so majestic, yet so 
subduing — so full of melancholy, yet of grandeur and command. 
This vast portal opened, and from it marched a host such as 
man had never seen before — such as man shall never see but 
once again — the guardian angels of the city of David They 
came forth gloriously, but with woe in all their steps ; the stars 
upon their helmets dim ; their robes stained ; tears flowing down 
their cheeks of celestial beauty. " Let us go hence," swelled 
upon the night, to the uttermost limits of the land. The pro- 
cession lingered long upon the summit of the hill. The thunders 
pealed ; and they rose at the command, diffusing waves of light 
over the expanse of heaven. The chorus was still heard, mag- 
nificent and melancholy, until their splendor was diminished to 
the brightness of a star. Then the thunder roared again. The 
cloudy temple was scattered on the wind, and darkness, the 
*men of the grave, settled upon Jerusalem. 



May. 

[Leigh Hunt, whose -writings are remarkable for an extreme delicacy 
of fancy, although deformed by a quaintness savoring of affectation, is 
the author of the following poem, suggested by the season, which shows, 
in a striking manner, both his excellences and his defects.] 

May ! thou month of rosy beauty, 
Month when pleasure is a duty ; 
Month of maids that milk the kine — 
Bosom rich and breath divine \ 



MAY. 489 

Month of bees and month of flowers ; 
Month of blossom-laden bowers ; 
Month of little hands with daisies, 
Lover's love, and poet's praises ; 
O, thou merry month complete — 
May ! — that very name is sweet. 

May was maid in olden times, 
And is still in Scottish rhymes ; 
May's the blooming hawthorn bough ; 
May's the month that's laughing now. 
I no sooner write the word 
Than it seems as though it heard. 
Like a sweet face, rosily ; 
Like an actual color bright, 
Flushing from the paper's white ; 
Like a bride that knows her power, 
Startled in a summer bower. 

If the rains that do us wrong 

Come to keep the winter long, 

And deny us the sweet looks, 

I can love thee, sweet ; in books — 

Love thee in the poet's pages, 

Where they keep thee green for ages ; 

Love and read thee, as a lover 

Reads his lady's letter over. 

Breathing blessings on the art 

Which commingles those that part. 

There is May in books forever : 
May will part from Spenser never ; 
May's in Milton ; May's in Prior ; 
May's in Chaucer, Thomson, Dyer ; 
May's in all the Italian books ; 
She has old and modern nooks, 
Where she sleeps with nymphs and elvet 
In happy places they call shelves, 
And will rise and dress your rooms 
With a drapery thick with blooms. 
Come, ye rains, then, if ye will ; 
May's at home and with me still ; 
But come, rather thou, good weather, 
And find us in the fields together. 



490 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 



The Majesty of Intellect. —Rev. g. s. Weaver 

P'eom time immemorial intellectual endowments have been 
crowned with bays of honor. In all times and nations intellect 
has been the idol-god of the human race. Men have worshiped 
at its shrine with an Eastern idolatry. Men of great intellect 
have been regarded as demigods. The multitude have looked 
upon them -»ith awe-struck wonder. An impression has been 
felt, as of me presence of a grand and solemn agent of spiritual 
majesty and power. With cheerful and reverent hands the 
world has crowned intellect with its richest honors. Its pathway 
has been strewn with flowers ; its brow has worn the loftiest 
plume ; it has sat upon the proudest throne ; it has held the 
mightiest scepter of power. This general, universal adoration 
of intellect is proof at once both of its transcendent worth and 
power. But evidences mightier than these are standing thick as 
stars in night's diadem, all through the universe, proclaiming the 
worth and power of that which produces thought, and adapts 
ends to means. 

By intellect divine came the earth, rolling her vast circuit 
among the numberless hosts of the family of worlds, with all its 
rich and gorgeous furniture. By intellect divine came the 
glory-flashing magnificence of heaven ; its blazing suns lit 
beyond suns that roam and shine through the measureless spaces 
of immensity. By intellect human came the secondary creations 
that mark with the chiseled lines of thought and skill the career 
of man — the cultivated fields, the vine-clad hills, the mill- 
strewn vales, the love-iit homes, the village-decked plains, the 
city-girt continents, the steamer-covered streams, the wire- 
woven and iron-bound lands, and sail-wreathed oceans. By 
intellec came all the stirring, sublime, mystery-woven realities 
of the universe. Then is it not worthy of our attention ? And 
though but a feeble spark be ours, should it not be cultivated ? 



Character the SouVs Habiliment. —Rev. g. s. Weave* 

Evert youth must make his own character. It is a work 
which God has wisely consigned to him alone. No other can do 
it for him. Not man, or angel, or God can form a character for 
fiis soul. These may assist him, but the work he must do him- 
self. Character is the unseen spirit-garment that one's thoughts 



THE SLEEPER ON GALILEE. 491 

and feelings weave about his soul with the invisible fingers of 
the divine law of reward and retribution. 

It is a mysterious and glorious work, thus, with the thoughts 
that glow with light, and the feelings that burn with love, to 
weave about our souls those robes of imperishable beauty, glit- 
tering with the party-colored light of every virtue, which are a 
defense against all that can harm us, which draw around us, in 
admiration and joy, multitudes of earth's best spirits, and which, 
in heaven, we shall wear, unshamed by their comparison with 
the habiliments that mantle the angel forms. 

And glorious is the thought that these robes are of our own 
forming. They are ours. And the joy and the glory of their 
wearing is ours. Not with wealth were they bought ; and not 
as an inherited heirloom did they descend upon us, nor as the 
patrimony of parental industry ; not with other hands were they 
formed, nor with others' exertions were they obtained. No; 
for they are ours. We formed them by industrious exertion in 
behalf of the good, the beautiful, and the true — formed them in 
the efforts of wisdom, virtue, and love ; in trial, tears, and prayer ; 
m struggle, discipline, and hope ; in constancy, energy, and de- 
votion — and formed them for the glory of our own souls, and the 
good of all with whom we are linked in love and duty. We 
formed them for earth, and formed them for the skies. We 
shall wear them through time, and wear them in eternity. But, 
God be thanked, we may brighten and strengthen them below, 
and adorn and enrich them more and more, even forever in 
heaven. 



The Sleeper on Galilee,— Miss Hab&ibt j. 

The storm was abroad, and the wind on the sea 
Had rocked the rough cradle of dark Galilee, 
Till the waters were fearful, and hoarse was the roar, 
As the billows leaped outward, and broke on the shore. 

A frail bark was plowing each hollow and steep, 
Now mounting to ether, now lost in the deep, 
Still vanquished, but turning anew to the strife, 
Like the vessel of hope on the ocean of life. 

And the cheek of the seaman at midnight grew pale, 
And the prayer of the scorner was lost in the gale, 
And moans struggled up on the shuddering air, 
As some stout heart grew faint, and gave up to despair. 



492 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Yet One in that tumult was sleeping the while, 
And His brow of pale peacefulness glowed to a smile, 
And the anguish that shadowed His forehead by day 
In a dream of strange rapture had melted away. 

A wail on His ear, and a hand on His arm, 
" Ah ! carest thou not that we die in the storm ? " 
But scarce from that lip had the murmuring passed, 
Ere the brow of the sleeper was bared to the blast. 

He breathed on the billows ; they knelt in His breath, 
And still was the heart of the ocean in death, 
And the pitiless tempest came mute at His nod, 
And furled its dark wings in the presence of God. 

The stars were in waiting, and full was the glow, 
As they thronged o'er the motionless mirror below, 
And fearful ones whispered, " What being have we, 
That reins the fierce tempest and fetters the sea ? " 

But He turned with a sigh to His pillow apart, 
And the dream that was broken crept back to His heart, 
And the word that had stilled, and the storm that had riven, 
Alike were forgot in that vision of heaven. 









The Winged Worshippers. — C. Spraotb. 

Gat, guiltless pair,* 
What seek ye from the fields of heaven ? 

Ye have no need of prayer, 
Ye have no sins to be forgiven. 

Why perch ye here, 
Where mortals to their Maker bend ? 

Can your pure spirits fear 
The God ye never could offend ? 

Ye never knew 
The crimes for which we come to weep : 

Penance is not for you, 
Blest wanderers of the upper deep. 



• Two swallows having ontered a church during divln* 



THE FOUR MASTER SPIRITS. 493 

To you 'tis given 
To wake sweet nature's untaught lays ; 

Beneath the arch of heaven 
To chirp away a life of praise. 

Then spread each wing, 
Far, far above, o'er lakes and lands, 

And join the choirs that sing 
In yon blue dome, not reared with hands. 

Or, if ye stay 
To note the consecrated hour, 

Teach me the airy way, 
And let me try your envied power. 

Above the crowd, 
On upward wings, could I but fly, 

I'd bathe in yon bright cloud, 
And seek the stars that gem the sky. 

'Twere heaven, indeed, 
Through fields of trackless light to soar, 

On nature's charms to feed, 
And nature's own great God adore. 



The Four Master Spirits of the Human Race.— Axon. 

Happening to cast my eyes over the portraits in a gallery of 
paintings, I remarked that they were so arranged as to give four 
personages — Alexander, Hannibal, Csesar, and Bonaparte — 
the most conspicuous places. I had seen the same before ; but 
never did a similar train of reflections arise in my bosom, as 
when my mind now hastily glanced over their several histories. 

Alexander, having climbed the dizzy heights of ambition, and 
with his temples bound with chaplets dipped in the blood of 
countless nations, looked down upon a conquered world, and 
wept that there was not another to conquer — set a city on fire, 
and died in a disgraceful scene of debauch. 

Hannibal, after having, to the astonishment and consternation 
of Rome, passed the Alps, — after having put to flight the armies 
vf this " mistress of the world," and stripped three bushels of 
golden rings from the fingers of her slaughtered kn ghts, ana 



494 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

made her veiy foundations quake, — returned to his country, to 
be defamed, to be driven into exile, and to die at last by ppison 
administered by his own hand, unlarnented and unwept, in a 
foreign clime. 

Caesar, after having taken eight hundred cities, and dyed his 
garments in the blood of one million of his fellow-men, — after 
having pursued to the death the only rival he had on earth, — 
was assassinated by those he considered his nearest friends, and 
at the very point in which he had gained the highest object of 
his ambition. 

Bonaparte, whose mandates kings and priests obeyed, after 
naving filled the earth with the terror of his name, — after having 
deluged Europe with tears and blood, and clothed the world in 
sackcloth, — closed his days in lonely banishment, almost exiled 
from the world, yet where he could sometimes see his country's 
banner waving over the deep, but which would not, or could not, 
bring him aid. 

Thus those four men, who, from the peculiar situation of their 
portraits, seemed to stand as representatives of all those whom 
the world calls " great," — those four who made the earth trem- 
ble to its center, — severally died — one by intoxication, the 
second by suicide, the third by assassination, and the last in 
lonely exile. 

How vain is the greatness of this world ! How fearful is the 
gift of genius, if it be abused ! Who, that is now living, would 
not rather die the death of the humble, righteous man, than that 
of Alexander, or Hannibal, or Caesar, or Napoleon ? 



The Better Land.— Mrs. Hemans. 

" I hear thee speak of the better land ; 
Thou call'st its children a happy band : 
Mother ! O, where is that radiant shore ? 
Shall we not seek it, and weep no more ? 
Is it where the flower of the orange blows, 
And the fireflies glance through the myrtle boughs ? M 
" Not there, not there, my child." 

" Is it where the feathery palm trees rise, 
And the date grows ripe under sunny skies ? 
Or 'midst the green islands of glittering seas, 
Where fragrant forests perfume the breeze. 



THE WILKINSON TRIAL. 495 

And strange, bright birds on their starry wings 
Bear the rich hues of all glorious things ? " l 
" Not there, not there, my child." 

" Is it far away in some region old, 
Where the rivers wander o'er sands of gold, 
Where the burning rays of the ruby shine, 
And the diamond lights up the secret mine, 
And the pearl gleams forth from the coral strand ? 
Is it there, sweet mother, that better land ? " 
" Not there, not there, my child. 

" Eye hath not seen it, my gentle boy ; 
Ear hath not heard its deep songs of joy ; 
Dreams can not picture a world so fair ; 
Sorrow and death may not enter there. 
Time doth not breathe on its fadeless bloom ; 
For beyond the clouds, and beyond the tomb, 
It is there, it is there, my child." 



The Wilkinson Trial. — S. S. Prentiss. 

Gentlemen of the jury, if to be a Mississippian is an 
offence in my clients, I can not defend them ; I am myself 
particeps criminis. We are all guilty ; with malice afore- 
thought, we left our own beautiful homes, and sought that land, 
the name of which seems to arouse in the minds of the opposing 
counsel only images of horror. Truly the learned gentlemen 
are mistaken in us ; we are no cannibals, nor savages. I would 
that they would visit us, and disabuse their minds of these unkind 
prejudices. They would find in that far country thousands of 
their own Kentuckians, who have cast their lot by the monarch 
stream, in the enjoyment of whoso rich gifts, though they forget 
not, they hardly regret the bright river upon whose banks they 
strayed in childhood. No state has contributed more of her sons 
to Mississippi than Kentucky ; nor do they suffer by being trans- 
planted to that genial soil. Their native state may well be proud 
of them, as they ever are of her. 

But I do injustice to you and to myself by dwelling upon this 
matter. Here, in the heart of Kentucky, my clients have sought 
and obtained an unprejudiced, impartial jury. You hold in yo it 
\\ands the balance of justice ; and I ask, and expect that you will 



496 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

not permit the prosecution to cast extraneous and improper 
weights into the scale, against the lives of the defendants. You 
constitute the mirror, whose office it is to reflect, in your verdict, 
the law and the evidence which have been submitted to you. 
Let no foul breath dim its pure surface, and cause it to render 
back a broken and distorted image. Through you now flows the 
stream of public justice ; let it not become turbid by the trampling 
of unholy feet. 

But you will excuse these prefatory observations ; they are 
instigated by no doubt of you, but by a sense of duty to the de- 
fendants. I wish to obviate, in advance, the attempts which I 
know will be made to excite against them improper and ungen- 
erous prejudices. You have seen in the examination of one of 
the witnesses, this very day, a specimen of the kind of feeling 
which has existed elsewhere, and which I so earnestly deprecate. 
So enraged was he, because the defendants had obtained an 
impartial jury, that he wished the whole legislature in that place 
not to be mentioned to ears polite, and that he might be the fire- 
man ; and all on account of the passage of the law changing the 
venue. Now, though I doubt much whether this worthy gentle- 
man will be gratified in his benevolent wishes in relation to the 
final destiny of the Senate and House of Representatives of this 
goodly commonwealth, yet I can not but believe that his desires 
in regard to himself will be accomplished, and his ambitious 
aspirations fully realized in the ultimate enjoyment of that singu- 
lar office which he so warmly covets. 



The Dying Alchemist.— Willia. 

The night wind with a desolate moan swept by ; 
And the old shutters of the turret swung 
Screaming upon their hinges ; and the moon, 
As the torn edges of the cloud flew past, 
Struggled aslant the stained and broken panes 
So dimly, that the watchful eye of death 
Scarcely was conscious when it went and came. 
The fire beneath his crucible was low, 
Yet still it burned ; and ever, as his thoughts 
Grew insupportable, he raised himself 
Upon his wasted arm, and stirred the coals 
With difficult energy ; and when the rod 
Fell from his nerveless fingers, and his eye 



THE DYING AXCHEMIST. 49*) 

Felt faint within its socket, he shrunk back 
Upon his pallet, and with unclosed lips 
Muttered a curse on death ! The silent room 
From its dim corners mockingly gave back 
His rattling breath ; the humming in the fire 
Had the distinctness of a knell ; and when 
Duly the antique horologe beat one, 
He drew a vial from beneath his head, 
And drank ; and instantly his lips compressed ; 
And with a shudder in his skeleton frame, 
He rose with supernatural strength, and sat 
Upright, and communed with himself. 

I did not think to die 
Till I had finished what I had to do ; 
I thought to pierce the eternal secret through 

With this my mortal eye. 
I felt — O God ! it seemeth even now, 
This can not be the death dew on my brow ; 

And yet it is : I feel 
Of this dull sickness at my heart afraid ; 
And in my eyes the death sparks flash and fade. 

And something seems to steal 
Over my bosom like a frozen hand, 
Binding its pulses with an icy band. 

And this is death ! But why 
Feel I this wild recoil ? It can not be 
The immortal spirit shuddereth to be free ! 

Would it not leap to fly, 
Like a chained eaglet, at its parent's call ? 
I fear, I fear that this poor life is all ! 

Yet thus to pass away ! 
To live but for a hope that mocks at last ! 
To agonize, to strive, to watch, to fast, 

To waste the light of day, 
Night's better beauty, feeling, fancy, thought, 
All that we have and are, for this ! for nought \ — 

Grant me another year, 
God of my spirit ! but a day, to win 
Something to satisfy this thirst within ! 

I would know something here. 
Break for me but one seal that is unbroken ! 
Speak for me but one word that is unspoken ! 

Vain, vain ! my brain is turning 
32 



498 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

With a swift dizziness ; and my heart grows sick 
And these hot temple-throbs come fast and thick, 

And I am freezing, burning, 
Dying. O God, if I might only live ! 
My vial ! — ha, it thrills me ; I revive. 

Ay, were not man to die, 
He were too glorious for this narrow sphere ! 
Had he but time to brood on knowledge here, 

Could he but train his eye, 
Might he but wait the mystic word and hour, 
Only his Maker would transcend his power ! 

Earth has no mineral strange, 
The illimitable air no hidden wings, 
Water no quality in its covert springs, 

And fire no power to change, 
Seasons no mystery, and stars no spell, 
Which the unwasting soul might not compel. 

O, but for time to track 
The upper stars into the pathless sky ; 
To see the invisible spirits, eye to eye ; 

To hurl the lightning back ; 
To tread unhurt the sea's dim-lighted halls ; 
To chase Day's chariot to the horizon walls : 

And more, much more ; (for now 
The life-sealed fountains of my nature move ;) 
To nurse and purify this human love ; 

To clear the godlike brow 
Of weakness and mistrust, and bow it down, 
Worthy and beautiful, to the much loved one. 

This were indeed to feel 
The soul-thirst slaken at the living stream ; 
To live. — O God ! that life is but a dream ; 

And death — Aha ! I reel — 
Dim — dim — I faint — darkness comes o'er my eye ■ 
Cover me ! save me ! God of heaven ! I die ! 

Twas morning ; and the old man lay alone. 
No friend had closed his eyelids ; and his lips, 
Open, and ashy pale, the expression wore 
Of his death struggle. His long, silvery hair 
Lay on his hollow temples, thin and wild ; 
His frame was wasted, and his features wan 
And haggard as with want ; and in his palm 
His nails were driven deep, as if the throe 
Of the last agony had wrung him sore 



LOSS OF THE STEAMSHIP PRESIDENT. 499 

The storm was raging still ; the shutters swung 
Screaming as harshly in the fitful wind ; 
And all without went on, (as aye it will, 
Sunshine or tempest,) reckless that a heart 
Is breaking, or has broken in its change. 
The fire beneath the crucible was out ; 
The vessels of his mystic art lay round, 
Useless and cold as the ambitious hand 
That fashioned them ; and the small silver rod, 
Familiar to his touch for threescore years, 
Lay on the alembic's rim, as if it still 
Might vex the elements at its master's will. 

And thus had passed from its unequal frame 
A soul of fire ; a sun -bent eagle stricken 
From his high soaring down ; an instrument 
Broken with its own compass. O, how poor 
Seems the rich gift of genius, when it lies, 
Like the adventurous bird that hath out-flown 
His strength upon the sea, ambition-wrecked — 
A thing the thrush might pity, as she sits 
Brooding in quiet on her lonely nest ! 



Loss of the Steamship President. —Rw. J. n. Mavftt. 

The great American heart was throbbing with deep pulsations 
of joy. Thousands, as far as the eye could fathom the distance, 
were crowding into the Capitol. A president of seventeen mil- 
lions of people, invoking the mantle of Washington to fall upon 
him, was about to ascend the elective throne of freemen, to 
execute the public will. Nor came he unattended with banner, 
pennon, shout, and song, borne along by and swelling up from 
millions. 

The steamship President, in the harbor of New York, had her 
signals of departure for the shores of Europe fluttering in the 
breeze. Alas ! at the end of one short month where were both ? 
At the end of one short month the pilot of the nation was smitten 
at the helm of the ship of state. His nerveless hand no longer 
had power over the rudder ; it was cold in death. Sorrow 
mantled every shroud in sable. The sails flapped heavily against 
the yards and masts, and wooed no breeze of delight, cheerily 
dancing over the dark waters. The dirge was the only 
choiy music that wailed to the listening sea. 



500 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Where was the steamship President ? As a sea bird, whose 
track upon the shore the shifting sands obliterate, she had gone 
forth, and left no track upon the waters. Her proud form had 
vanished, in the blue distance, from the eyes of one continent ; 
her stripes and stars had not emerged from the ocean upon 
another. 

I see the gallant bark, in her majestic course, dashing proudly 
on, plowing up the phosphorescent fires which leap and flash 
from every crested wave. On, on, over the trackless waste ; 
but as unerringly guided by the power of science as though she 
coursed within a beaten track. The last dim shore recedes. 
Night comes on. A solitary light peers through the distant 
gloom — nearer and nearer. It is the last beacon light that 
warns the ocean traveler from the treacherous reef ; now farther 
and farther behind, and the last work of man on the western 
hemisphere fades forever from the view. 

What a still, vast solitude ! Immensity is not less compre- 
hensible than the emotions which it excites. Morning again, and 
returning night, lighted up with its myriad stars. Night and 
morning, morning and night — and no change ! Though rushing 
wildly on, the noble voyager seems to stand upon a single point 
of time — the center of a shoreless, illimitable circle. 



The Same, continued. 

Pkottd as is the movement of a steamship upon the ocean 
wave, and as fearlessly as she dashes from her prow the feathery 
spray, going with the gale, or holding on her way in the wind's 
eye — roaring forth her voice of power over the waves — still 
she is an object of terror ; still is she cradled upon treacherous 
deeps, holding in her own bosom the elements of a more dread- 
ful and volcanic doom, — an explosive death, — to the fearfulness 
of which the lowest deeps of the Atlantic were as downy beds 
of repose. 

As the steamer President swept on and on, the sullen icebergs, 
gendered in arctic seas, came down like a buoyant fleet of moun- 
tains. They lifted their pale, cold peaks into equatorial suns, and 
scarcely relented under their blaze. Strong, chill winds swept 
over the sounding seas. Clouds, inky as night, lay mountainous 
in heaven. The old seamen knew that a storm was at hand. 
Such voices full oft have moaned over the deep, and full oft to 
seamen bold have night and storm shut down together, and no 
morning to him or his gallant bark hath ever lifted the vail. 



A SUMMER SUNSET. 501 

Scarce heard amid the war of elements, the President is in- 
gulfed in the seething waters. But see ! the spirit ship swings 
gracefully into the whirlpool, and glides upon the torn and frantic 
ocean. Her sides are burnished gold. The water drops are 
like pearls upon it. The decks are inlaid with precious stones. 
The tall and taper masts are ivory, and the graceful sails, Jikr 
wings, woo the upper airs of heaven, and make low-toned music, 
as ten thousand wind harps, melting to ecstasy in summer even- 
ing zephyrs. 

The commander is He who walked the waters. The navigators 
ars beings not of earth. The storm gladdens under their eyes 
of beauty. They hold the winds with silken reins. An anchor 
falls where the President went down ; the life boat lowers, and 
one after another of the pious faithful are taken on board, serene 
and unharmed — not pale, shrinking, and terrified as the moment 
before they sank in the death struggles of an earthly ship. Loud 
huzzas ring through the ship of glory, bursting from the crowded 
shrouds and spars, and echoed back from round-tops and gallant- 
masts. Heavenly music rings fore and aft, and cheer succeeds 
cheer, while the glittering anchor is weighed, and the region of 
storm and death left far in the wake forever. 

Voyager of immortality, look not now dubiously out over the 
element on which thy bark of glory floats. It grows purer and 
purer. Not a vapor curls over its placid bosom. Tt never en- 
gendered the storm, and the heaving of its waves are but the 
pulsations of eternal love. 



A Summer Sunset. — Rev. a. e Goodwtn, 

Behold at eventide 

The gorgeous, sun-lit sky ; 
The cloudy mountains dyed 

With hues that art defy ; 
The wide-spread sea of flame 

That rolls along the west, 
And graves Jehovah's name 

On every flaming crest. 

And tell me, ye that Chance 
Have called your only Lord 

Will not this single glance 
Stamp libel on your word ? 
W 



*©U ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

Can human art devise 
Or execute the scene 

That paints the evening skies 
With glories all have seen ? 

In vain may mortals try- 
To chart the flaming sea, 

That burns along the sky 
In fearful majesty, 

Or sketch the mountain cloud 
Whose base is bathed in blood 

Whose summit's golden shroud 
Is dipped in light's clear flood. 

And if, O skillful man, 

With wondrous art endowed, 
You own you never can 

Portray the evening cloud, 
Why, then, your shame enhance, 

By such an impious word 
As that the phantom Chance 

Is the eternal Lord ? 

Drawn by a hand divine 

These scenes of beauty are ; 
With borrowed rays they shine 

The name of God afar. 
He throws around the scene 

His holy mantle bright ; 
The sun is but the sheen 

Of God's eternal light. 



The Pitiable Condition of Ignorance. 

W. W. Hageman. 

I can conceive of no object more pitiable than an old man, 
who, tottering with the weight of years, with a head whitened by 
the frosts of many winters, has not advanced a single step 
toward the perfection of that cultivation which his higher nature 
demanded in thunder tones all along the broad highway of life, 
and whose feeble limbs have now brought him to the verge of 
the grave, a beggar in generous sentiment and kind feelings ; 



DEATH AND THE DRUNKARD. 503 

passing from earth into the wide ocean of eternity, with a heart 
unwarmed by love or sympathy for his fellow-man — every 
noble feeling crushed and withered by a morbid passion foi 
wealth. A human heart, eighty years old, dead to every human 
interest. Life to him has indeed been a struggle, in which ava- 
rice has been the victor. We march through life, not to the 
deep, soul-stirring anthem which bursts upon the spiritual ear, 
as it comes gushing up from the mysterious depths of nature, 
mingling its sublime harmony with the melody of the immortal 
soul, struggling to wing its way to the home of the Eternal , Dut 
every ear is attuned to the clinking of coin, and all move in solid 
phalanx to the low murmur of selfishness and ambition. 

Why should we stifle the infinite sources of purest pleasure 
that lie deep seated in the soul, and content ourselves with the 
thorns and thistles gathered from the wayside in life's journey, 
when, by wandering occasionally from the beaten track, a new 
world of richness and of beauty opens to our view, from which 
we can gather flowers, inhale their fragrance, and feel the warm 
sunshine — gathering sweets which seldom linger among the 
abodes of covetousness and luxury ? Why linger in the desert 
amid tempests and barrenness, when the oasis lies just beyond, 
with its bowers thrown open by the hand of God himself ; where 
the weary pilgrim can repose, far from the world's ignoble strife, 
there gather strength to nerve him on the brink of the river that 
shall bear him to a fairer land ? Why steal away from the bright 
fireside, where all that is lovely and genial in the affections 
should cluster, to feed upon the husks that a sordid and selfish 
world offer to thy unsatisfied soul ? Why should these pleasures 
of the high and more ennobling class be confined to the few, 
when all who choose may taste them ? With most of us in this 
money-making age, the inspirations of genius are dim vagaries, 
visionary nonsense. Young America wants something the eye 
can see and measure ; it must be as palpable as John or James, 
or else it is pronounced a nonentity. 



Death and the Drunkard.— anon. 

His form was fair, his cheek was health ; 
His word a bond, his purse was wealth ; 
With wheat his field was covered o'er ; 
Plenty sat smiling at his door. 



504 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

His wife the fount of ceaseless joy ; 

Now laughed his daughter, played his boy ; 

His library, though large, was read 

Till half its contents decked his head. 

At morn 'twas health, wealth, pure delight , 

'Twas health, wealth, peace, and bliss at nigh. 

I wished not to disturb his bliss ; 

'Tis gone ! but all the fault is his. 

The social glass I saw him seize, 
The more with festive wit to please, 
Daily increase his love of cheer ; 
Ah, little thought he I was near ! 
Gradual indulgence on him stole, 
Frequent became the midnight bowl. 
I in that bowl the headache placed, 
Which, with the juice, his lips embraced. 
Shame next I mingled with the draught ; 
Indignantly he drank, and laughed. 

In the bowl's bottom bankruptcy 

I placed ; he drank with tears and glee 

Remorse did 1 into it pour ; 

He only sought the bowl the more. 

I mingled, next, joint-torturing pain ; 

Little the more did he refrain. 

The dropsy in the cup I mixed ; 

Still to his mouth the cup was fixed. 

My emissaries thus in vain 

I sent, the mad wretch to restrain. 

On the bowl's bottom, then, myself 
I threw, — the most abhorrent elf 
Of all that mortals hate or dread, — 
And thus in horrid whispers said : 
" Successless ministers I've sent 
Thy hastening ruin to preven* ; 
Their lessons nought ; then here am * 
Think not my threatenings to defy. 
Swallow this ; this thy last will be, 
For with it thou must swallow me." 

Haggard his eyes, upright his hair, 
Remorse his lips, his cheeks despair . 



VARIOUS EXTRACTS. 505 

With shaking hands the bowl he clasped, 
My meatless limbs his carcass grasped, 
And bore it to the churchyard, where 
Thousands, ere I would call, repair. 

Death speaks : ah, reader, dost thou hear ? 
Hast thou no lurking cause to fear ? 
Has not o'er thee the sparkling bowl 
Constant, commanding, sly control ? 
Betimes reflect, betimes beware, 
Though ruddy, healthful now, and fair ; 
Before slow reason lose the sway, 
Reform ; postpone another day, 
You soon may mix with common clay. 



Various Extracts. 

Metaphor. — A great proportion of the wretchedness which 
nas so often embittered married life, I am persuaded, has origi- 
nated in a negligence of trifles. Connubial happiness is a thing 
of too fine texture to be handled roughly. It is a sensitive plant, 
which will not bear even the touch of unkindness — a delicate 
flower, which indifference will chill and suspicion blast. 

It must be watered by the showers of tender affection, ex- 
panded by the cheering glow of attention, and guarded by the 
impregnable barrier of unshaken confidence. Thus matured, it 
will bloom with fragrance in every season of life, and sweeten 
even the loneliness of declining years. 



It is this miserable materialism, this sacrifice of every thing 
to money and position, which has fixed upon us the stigma of 
national sordidness. This is the system which produces your 
men of one idea, your narrow-minded, dangerous men, as well 
as your close, grasping, conservative Shylocks ; those excessively 
philosophical individuals who affect to disapprove of charity as 
creating paupers ; so exceedingly afraid of imposition, that they 
shut their eyes in terror at the proximity of a beggar, but face 
without alarm the veriest sharper in their business ; who teach 
their children that success and virtue always go together, that 
poverty and pilfering are synonymous, that failure and crime 



606 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

are inseparable; men who place the warm and glowing sym 
pathies of youth in refrigerators and anticharitable arguments, 
and freeze them beside icy stumps of scorn ; who would take the 
milk of human kindness, and press it under weights of worldli- 
ness into a hard-crusted cheese, which must be cut off, and cut 
into, and dug out, before the smallest particle can be obtained 
for the outcast and desolate. — Dickens. 



Trespass, as described in Legal Phraseology. — "Bless 
me, Mr. Poance, what is this?" (Reads.) "'For that the 
said John Snooks, on the 10th day of May, with force and arms, 
broke and entered a certain house of the plaintiff's, and made a 
great noise and disturbance therein, and so continued to make a 
disturbance for the space of twenty-four hours ' 

" That, sir, is the declaration in trespass." 

" But the man only knocked ; he didn't make any disturbance 
at the door for twenty-four hours." 

u A mere formal allegation, sir, not necessary to be proved." 

" But he didn't break in divers, to wit, twenty doors." 

" Pooh, sir ! don't you see that it is laid under a videlicet ? " 

" Laid under a what ? " 

" A videlicet ; that means you mustn't prove the allegation if 
it is immaterial ; but if material, you must." 

" But what's the use of it, then ? " 

" The use of it, my dear sir ! But you don't understand these 
things — they are vocabularies." 

" And what may that be ? " 

" Why, words that raise doubts, swell costs, and enable the 
professional man to make the most of a very small case." 



Complaining. — Neal, the author of the Charcoal Sketches, 
thus admirably takes off that class of people who are never so 
happy as when they are making themselves miserable : — 

" How are you, Trepid ? How do you feel to-day, Mr. 
Trepid ? " 

" A great deal worse than I was, thank'ee ; most dead, I'm 
obliged to you ; I'm always worse than I was, and I don't think 
I was ever any better. I'm very sure, any how, I'm not going 
to be any better ; and for the future you may always know Pm 
worse, without asking any questions, for the questions make me 
wore, if nothing else does." 



VARIOUS EXTRACTS. 507 

w Why, Trepid, what's the matter with you ? " 
"Nothing, I tell you, in particular, but a greal deal is the 
matter with me in general ; and that's the danger, because we 
don't know what it is. That's what kills people, when they 
can't tell what it is ; that's what's killing me. My great grand- 
father died of it, and so will I. The doctors don't know ; they 
can't tell ; they say I'm well enough, when I'm bad enough, and 
so there's no help. I'm going off one of these days right after 
my grandfather, dying of nothing in particular, but of every 
thing in general. That's what finishes our folks." 



Language. — The endless diversity of words and idioms com- 
prised in the two thousand languages spoken by the human race, 
the endless variety of musical tones and expression, are not so 
astonishing as the simplicity of the machine by which these 
wonderful results are produced. A single volume of atmos- 
pheric air, expired by the lungs, modulated by the larynx, articu- 
lated by the tongue, the palate, the teeth, and the lips, is wrought 
into these infinitely varied manifestations of human thought and 
feeling. It gives an intelligible form to the inward workings of 
the soul, utters its mightiest thoughts, assumes the nicest shades 
of its pleasurable and painful emotions. Nay, it sweeps over 
mysterious chords existing in the souls of others, and awakens 
sympathetic joy, grief, hope, and terror in the breast of thou- 
sands. It becomes eloquence, philosophy, music. Yes, k 
becomes the favorite instrument by which the Most High com- 
municates his will to the human race. The human voice has 
been employed to utter the secrets of the eternal mind ; to tell 
of eternity past and eternity to come ; to awaken penitence and 
hope in the bosom of guilty man ; and to recall an alienated 
world to the obedience and love of its Creator. 



Take the bright shell 

From its home on the lea, 

And wherever it goes, 
It will sing of the sea. 

So take the fond heart 

From its home and its hearth 
'Twill sing of the loved 

To the ends of the earth. 



508 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

In the great drama of human life, act with conscience. Do 
what your hearts, what Nature will tell you to do ; and when 
your days will have been numbered, when wearied and tired 
of this world's strifes and contentions, you will lay yourselves 
down to sleep, how " like a May day breaking " will steal over 
your spirits the history of your lives ! and with the tendrils of 
your hearts will intertwine the fragrant leaves that bloom in the 
herbarium of recollection, and the dew drops of that consolation 
drawn from heaven, and " filtered through the skies," will fall 
in gentle showers upon your hearts, and bathe them in the floods 
of memory. — A. Oliver, 1856. 



Unwritten Poetry — Far down in the depths of the human 
heart there is a fountain of pure and hallowed feeling, from 
which, at times, swells up a tide of emotions which words are 
powerless to express, which the soul alone can appreciate. Full 
many hearts, overflowing with sublime thoughts and holy imagin- 
ings, need but the " pen of fire " to hold enraptured thousands 
in its spell. The " thoughts that breathe " are there, but not the 
" words that burn." Nature's own inspiration fills the heart 
with emotions too deep for utterance, and with the poetry of the 
heart lies forever concealed in its own mysterious shrine. 

Unwritten poetry ! It is stamped upon the broad blue sky, it 
twinkles in every star. It mingles in the ocean's surge, and 
glitters in the dew drop that gems the lily's bell. It glows in 
the gorgeous colors of the west at the decline of day, and resto 
in the blackened crest of the gathering storm cloud. It is on the 
mountain's hight, and in the cataract's roar ; in the towering 
oak, and in the tiny flower. Where we can see the hand of God, 
there Beauty finds her dwelling place. 



As landsmen, sitting in luxurious 

Talk of the dangers of the stormy seas ; 

As fireside travelers, with pretentious mien, 

Tell tales of countries they have never seen ; 

As paupers, gathered in congenial flocks, 

Babble of banks, insurances, and stocks ; 

As each is oftenest eloquent of what 

He hates or covets, but possesses not ; 

As cowards talk of pluck ; misers, of waste ; 

Scoundrels, of honor ; country clowns, of taste 



VARIOUS EXTKACTS. 509 

Ladies, of logic ; devotees, of sin ; 

Topers, of water ; temperance men, of gin, •— 

I sing of money. — J. G. Saxe. 



THE CROSS. 

Blest they who seek, 

While in their youth, 

With spirit meek, 

The way of truth. 
To them the sacred Scriptures now display 
Christ as the only true and living way ; 
His precious blood on Calvary was given 
To make them heirs of endless bliss in heaven. 
And e'en on earth the child of God can trace 
The glorious blessings of his Savior's grace 

For them he bore 

His father's frown ; 

For them he wore 

The thorny crown ; 

Nailed to the cross, 

Endured its pain, 

That his life's loss 

Might be their gain. 

Then haste to choose 

That better part, 

Nor ever dare refuse 

The Lord your heart, 

Lest he declare, 

" I know you not ; " 

And deep despair 

Forever be your lot. 

Now look to Jesus who on Calvary died, 

And trust on Him alone who there was crucified. 



The Triumphs of Cotton. — Let us trace out this fine, deli- 
cate fiber from its very origin to its final disposition, and observe 
what benefits it has diffused through its course. When brought 
to the domestic market and sold, it pays, or should pay, rent of 
land, cost of labor and transportation, and leave a profit to the 
grower. When sold, it pays a profit to the merchant In its 



510 ROSS'S SPEAKER. 

transfer to a forei^t - port, it pays the freight to the ship owner, 
including wages to the mariner. Arrived at a foreign port, it 
pays its tribute to he custom house, then pays for commission 
and storage, and cost of transportation possibly to Rouen or 
to Alsace, to be transformed into laces and muslins ; possibly to 
Lyons, to be woven in with tissues of silk. Arriving at the 
manufactory, it pays the carder, spinner, weaver, printer, em- 
broiderer, all engaged in the process of fabrication ; and lastly, 
the manufacturer, who vends it at a profit to the dealer, from 
whose hands it passes in the consumption of the country, clothes 
with rich draperies the gay saloons of fashion, by a happier des- 
tiny ; encircles with its gossamer folds the rounded forms of 
female loveliness ; embellishing and heightening what in itself 
is perfect, as floating clouds by the happy distribution of their 
golden tints may be supposed to have enhanced the splendors 
even of the terrestrial paradise. — Hon. Wrn. Elliot, 



Time's Mission. — Time is the most undefinable yet para 
doxical of things ; the past is gone, the future is not come, and 
the present becomes the past, even while we attempt to define it, 
and like the flash of the lightning, at once exists and expires. 
Time is the measurer of all things, but itself immeasurable, and 
the grand discloser of all things, but is itself undisclosed. Like 
space, it is incomprehensible, because it has no limits, and it 
would be still more so if it had. It is more obscure in its source 
than the Nile, and in its termination than the Niger ; and ad- 
vances like the slowest tide, but retreats like the swiftest torrent. 
It gives wings of lightning to pleasure, but feet of lead to pain, 
and lends expectation a curb, but enjoyment a spur. It robs 
beauty of her charms, to bestow them on her picture, and builds 
a monument to merit, but denies it a house ; it is the transient 
and deceitful flatterer of falsehood, but the tried and final friend 
of truth. Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and re- 
pentance behind it. He that has made it his friend will have 
little to fear from his enemies ; but he that has made it b«s ene- 
my will have little to hope fr >m his friends. 



Commencement Parts* 

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Here is a book full of the real thing, and con- 
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The models here — every one a complete address 
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one did do on the particular occasion when he actu- 
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to be designated models in a genuine sense. 

If you are called upon, for any occasion (no 
matter what) during your whole high-school or college 
career, and wish a model to show how some one eke 
has risen to a similar opportunity, we think you will 
discover by a glance at the list of contents of Com* 
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Besides the above we publish also the following, of interest to 
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College Girls' 
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$1.00— CLOTH, 500 PAGES, WITH INDEX— $1.00 

Here is a v< lume for American girls by American 
women — an ideal long in demand, now realized for the 
first time. In this book patriotism is the keynote domi- 
nating a series of new, iresh,speahadle selections, pathetic, 
humorous, descriptive, oratorical ; running, jn fact, 
the gamut of the emotions. A book for the American 
girl and the American young woman in the college, the 
high school, the academy, and the home. 

This new book is new in every sense of the word, but 
particularly in voicing the golden thoughts of scores of 
the living representative women of America— women edu- 
cators, women philanthropists, women reformers. 

Here is a partial list of the contributors : 

Mrs. A. Giddings Park "Susan Cootidge* 

Eva Lovett Cameron (Br**klyn EagU) Agnes E. Mitchell 
Edith M . Thomas Rev. AnnaH. Shaw 

Emma Lazarus Margaret Junkin PrettM 

Adelaide Procter Amelia Ban- 

CeliaThaxter Norah Perry 

Christina Rossetti Alice Cary 

Anna Robertson Lindsaf Adeline Whitney 

J. Ellen Foster Emily Warren 

Margaret E. Sangster Lucy Larcom 

Clara Barton Ella Wheeler Wilcox 

Frances E. Willard Harriet Beecher Stowe 

Kate Douglas Wiggin Mary Mapes Dodge 

Isabel A. Mallon (Ladies' Home Journal) " Gail Hamilton" 
wmC there are many others. 

A brief note, happily worded, conveying information not to be 
found elsewhere, regarding the author or the occasion, accompanies 
most of the selections. 

Teachers will find selections appropriate to Memorial Day, Arbor 
Day, Washington's Birthday, and all other patriotic occasions. And 
from the pages of this book speak the voices of many of our 
presidents, from Washington to ivlcKinley. 

Besides a perspicuous list of contents % the volume contains a complete gei+ 
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enabling' one who remembers only the title to find readily the author t «r 
who recalls only the author to find just as readily all of her selections. 

Like the companion volume, College Men's Declamations, this work 
contains many "pieces" suitable both for girls and boys, and the two books 
may well stand side by side upon the shelf of every student and every 
teacher, ever ready with some selection that is sure to please, and exactly 
'to *Ae speaker and to the occasion. 

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institute, lew Yet* 

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Here at last is a volume containing just what colleg* 
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never could find — something besides the old selection!* 
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seated by live men 1 Full of vitality for prize speaking. 

Such is the matter with which this volume abounds. 
To mention a few names — each speaking in his welt 
known style and characteristic vein : 

Chauncey M. Depew President Eliot (Hm rwm'd g 

Abeam S. Hewitt George Parsons Lathcop 

Ctrl Schurz Bishop Potter 

Wiiiram E. Cl ad rt aUB Sir Charles Russell 

Edward J. Phelps President Carter {William* 

Benjamin Harmon T. De Witt Talmage 

Crover Cleveland Ex-Pres. White ijComtUl 

General Horace Portflr Rev. Newman Smyth 

Doctor Storrs Emilio Castelar 

Here, too, sound the familiar veiees of George William Curtis, 
Lowell, Blaine, Phillips Btooks, Beeeher, Garfield, Disraeli, Bryant* 
Srady, and Choate. Poets also : — Longfellow, Holmes, Tennyson, 
Byron, Whittier, Schiller, Shelley, Hood, and others. 

More than a hundred other authors.besides ! We hare not space 
» enumerate. But the selections from them are all just the thing. 
and all the selections are brief. 

In addition to a perspicuous list of contents, the velum* contain* a com* 
Uete general index by titles and authors; and also a separate index of 
authors, thus enabling one who remembers only the titU to find readily tht 
author, or who recalls only the author to find just as readily all if hit 
mictions. 

Another invaluable feature :— Preceding each selection are given. 
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birth and death of the author ; and the occasion to whioh we owe the 
oration, or address, or poem. 

Like the companion volume, College Girls' Readings, this work one* 
tans many " pieces " suitable both for girls and boys, and the two books 
may well stand side by side upon the shelf of every student and every 
teacher, ever ready with some selection that is sue to plsaae, awd — 
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Pros and Cons , 

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Com plete Deb ates 

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A book that exactly fits into these last years of this wonderful 
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Besides giving complete directions for the organisation ami. 
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each speaker in turn with his arguments the first speakers 

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■j The array of arguments thus marshalled constitutes an intelli- 
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Among the important topics discussed are the following :— 

Government Control. Immigration. 

Our Foreign Policy* The License Question* 

The Tariff. The Suffrage. 

The Currency Question* Postage. 

Transportation* Our Commercial Policy* 

And many others. 

There is also a list of *' questions** suitable for debate, several tt 
Which are "briefly outlined?* to assist the student to prepare and to 
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'Essays and orations, many of them suitable for commencement 

Siits, Salutatory and Valedictory addresses, supplement the debates, 
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